Review: TikTok-lebrity Scott Evan Davis Brings Friends, Music & His Brand Of Snarkness in CONNECTION UNSTABLE At The Triad

Heigh-Ho, My Merry Rainbow Tribe! Bobby Patrick your RAINBOW Reviewer here. Putting the silent T in cabareT to bring you all the T!

So, dear rainbow readers, we took ourselves uptown to the Triad Saturday night to swim with the SNARKS of that uber handsome Scott Evan Davis presenting his original songs in CONNECTION UNSTABLE. Davis has found fame on the TikyToks (500K followers & counting) with his posts where he hangs in his wicker chair, sips coffee, and takes out 30ish seconds to drop a darkly sarcastic one-liner. He's gained that following because... well first there's that face... and then because the jokes he writes are truly funny. The setups are generally common everyday observations followed by various degrees of societal and/or relationship bloodletting. Funny stuff for sure, but before he became "The Prince Of Snarkness", Scott Evan Davis' life was about music - and it still is. Mr. Davis is a fine ASCAP and MAC award-winning composer of songs, song cycles, and full musicals for the theatre. Add to that, SED is a much sought-after piano and vocal teacher who reaches students from all over the virtual world imparting his expertise, and wouldn't he also just HAVE to be a wonderful singer in his own right too. Despite being this annoyingly gifted, Scott gave over most of the evening to his pals who joined him from the wings and the house to sing his songs to his expert accompaniment.

Opening the show solo on EVERYONE HAS A VICE, Scott did not disappoint his fans as he took out some musical rests to talk about things like punching stupid people in the throat or excusing yourself when you bump into a piece of the furniture. The song though was also a treat, reminiscent of the best of Tom Lehrer if Lehrer were a hunk with a beautifully trained tenor voice. While the talent line-up for the show was incredible people with fabulous voices, Scott could very well have performed his show singing all by himself and it would have been a fine night of cabaret. However, when your friends are Klea Blackhurst, Darlesia Cearcy, Gaelen Gilliland, Nicolas King, Meghan Jenkins, Adam Rennie, and Willy Falk, it's nice to give them their turn at the mic as well.... and take their turns they did. Each singing actor, under the expert light touch of director - Robert W. Schneider, performed at the top of their games with Scott and Amy Ralske on cello backing them up. The wonderful thing about SED's songs was that they were all scenes, whether they were standalone numbers or culled from his musical theatre work, each one presented people in various states of having to cope with what their world was relentlessly throwing at them no matter what. More than just telling stories, the music was essential in the life of the character because the spoken word was no longer good enough. Each comic or tragic or tragicomic situation presented real people with real coping mechanisms that, mostly, weren't working for them. This is the human condition and it's where Scott's musical monologues reach out and pluck the strings of his audience's internal harps. Watching people HAVE emotions is boring my lambs, but watching people trying to cope with those emotions with varying degrees of success and failure is what makes the house laugh, cry, gasp, or guffaw. Scott Evan Davis is clearly an expert at this part of our humanness... humanism... being people.

Deep into the set came a true triple highlight as Scott & Co presented all the humanity Bobby was just pithy about in 3 numbers from his musical INDIGO. Telling the story of a young non-verbal autistic girl and her family, the show was partially inspired by SED's work in 2012 with PS 94 Spectrum School in Lower Manhattan writing a musical with a class of 10 autistic children. This triptych of songs ran the gamut of hilarious to harrowing to heartwarming using all the acting gifts of his performers. The Hilarious came with Klea Blackhurst & Meghan Jenkins as the central young girl and her dementia suffering grandma who insists their living room chairs are an automobile and that her granddaughter should JUST DRIVE. Darlesia Cearcy broke hearts with her UN-broken, cultured voice on BROKEN followed by Adam Rennie & Meghan Jenkins again mixing their powerful vocals perfectly on their anthem to speechlessness, SILENT SUPERHERO. Following this cycle with the heartfelt IF WE SAY GOODBYE sung by the incomparable Nicholas King and the audience basically had the full rollercoaster ride from cackling to catharsis. More hearts were broken early in the show with Willie Falk's soaring rendition of Davis's paean to the shattering world of dementia, BEFORE I FORGET and Gaelen Gilliland's clarion voice on her clarion call of YOU MAKE ME CRAZY was another highlight of hilarity born of unbearable tension.

But, for this writer, it was Scott Evan Davis himself performing his encore GHOSTS with its haunting memories from the heartbreaks that come from life itself which showed that he is the best interpreter of his own music - marrying each word to each note with his acting. So what can little Bobby tell you all except that you should keep your eye out and your ears to the ground for any future performances of one Scott Evan Davis and in the meantime check out all his socials, videos, albums, and EP's so that you can become as big a fan as you know who. And so you know what comes next for CONNECTION UNSTABLE don't you... it's Bobby's full...

5 out Of 5 Rainbows

Scott Spins His Webby: HERE

Tweet Him On His Twitters: HERE

Check Out His Insta: HERE

Spot Him On The Spotifies: HERE

Look Right Up His YouTubes: HERE

Followe On Ye Olde FaceBooke: HERE

And You Must Check Out His World Famous Tiktoks: HERE

all photos by yours truly, Bobby Patrick

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