Review: Tim Connell's DREAMIN' AGAIN Is Such Sweet Reverie at Pangea

Tim Connell returned to the cabaret stage Tuesday night with a new show titled DREAMIN' AGAIN, and although there is some ambiguity to the meaning behind the title, rather a lack of explanation for the choice of names, no real specificity as to what Mr. Connell might be dreaming of, it doesn't matter because he wasn't the one doing the dreaming on Tuesday - the audience was. And in that dream, they were happy, satisfied, fulfilled, and they didn't want to wake up. That is the power of a great cabaret show. And Dreamin' Again is a great cabaret show.

Mr. Connell has put together a program that has no theme and no story arc. No tribute to a composer, a family member, or a time in his life is this: Dreamin' Again is simply seventy-five minutes of fantastic music and conversation, all of it storytelling-informed, and all of it accessible. Naturally, Tim shares at length and in detail his thoughts and feelings about the last nineteen months, things he did, things he didn't do, and what he would like to do next, now that he's... well, it's not quite clear what age he is now, only that he recently had a milestone birthday. There was much banter on the subject between Tim and his audience, most of it accompanied by gales of laughter.

Layering his comfy and casual conversation with music by everyone from Irving Berlin to Jason Mraz, from Hoagy Carmichael to John Bucchino, Tim Connell makes it clear that he can sing just about anything, and that his voice will sound wonderful while doing it. With a nice voice best described as bright, expressive, and open, Mr. Connell has achieved just the right amount of vibrato, impressive breath control, and a pleasant knack at modifying this pretty voice to work with a musical theater belt as well as it will with a pop lilt, and just about everything else. Weaving his acting skills into each song sung, Connell takes your breath away with more than his vocal technique, for this is a bona fide story teller, a singing actor whose interpretive skills are considerable. He can take a song you've heard a hundred times before and present it to you in ways that allow you to find newness in the lyric - you hear a melodic phrase in a different way - you see the story arc as though for the first time. One cannot help but wonder where Tim Connell went inside of himself to find something new in the beautiful "Where Do You Start?" - a song covered by nearly everyone - or what inspired such lovely, simple, stripped-down performances of "I Am What I Am" and "It Only Takes a Moment" - performances that will surprise even the most dedicated of musical theater aficionados. Indeed, much of Connell's musical performances leaned into a surprise of one kind or another, whether it be from Musical Director James Followell's inventive arrangements, the vast variety in the composers on display, clever new lyrics to some classic Porter, or Mr. Connell's demeanor and rhetoric.

The gentleman is delightfully voluble, quite endearingly so, so much so that the result of his absolutely authentic verbosity was an old turn of phrase oft used, but not always accurate; on this occasion, it was. He had them in the palm of his hand. It would be nice if every performer were this comfortable on the stage. Tim Connell could give a master class on relating to an audience. Whether singing, monologuing or carrying on an open conversation with any number of guests simultaneously, it was apparent that he could see every face in the room, and he connected with every person, looking into eyes, talking, joking, laughing, one on one, as a crowded room was looking on. The result of Mr. Connell's uncanny ability to reach every person was that the entire evening was one steeped in relaxation and pure joy. There is little to no doubt that Connell is like this off of the stage, but he owes a debt of gratitude to director Steven Petrillo for helping him bring that which is most uniquely him to the stage, where so many others feel the unnecessary compulsion to present a more heightened, a somewhat affected, a less relatable version of their self to their audience. Clearly, that doesn't work for Tim Connell and Misters Petrillo and Followell are the colleagues best suited to assist in the bringing of all the real-life facets of Tim to the stage. In doing so, the three men have given to the light a unicorn - a cabaret show for which one can find absolutely no constructive criticism - and that is a cabaret show that is such stuff as dreams are made of.

Tim Connell DREAMIN' AGAIN plays Pangea again November 27th at 7 pm. For information and tickets visit the Pangea website HERE.

THIS is the Tim Connell website.

Tim Connell gets a five out of five microphones rating for performing his entire show without the use of a lyric sheet, tablet, or music stand.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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