Review: BROADWAY MELODY Marries Story & Songs at 54 Below

A production titled Nowhere to Go But Up didn’t go down in history as one of Broadway’s big hits.  It lasted a week.  But that musical play plays a key part in the plot of Broadway Melody, a decade-spanning novel by Jack Viertel that mixes some such bits of actual theatre productions, people, places, and songs into its fiction.  The author read excerpts from the book for a program he hosted and co-produced at 54 Below, with guest singers performing relevant/referenced songs, with Greg Kenna at the keyboard, opening with the lively title number from the aforementioned ill-fated musical. Coincidentally, this one-night-only event happened on November 10, one day after the exact anniversary of the opening night of Nowhere to Go But Up (62 years ago, in 1962).

The novel covers the personal/romantic and professional lives of a trumpeter named Ike and a singer he falls in love with, Aurora, and the man she marries instead of him.  But Ike and Aurora meet again in their senior years and, as they say, the plot thickens.  And it cues songs that the characters are (or could have been) connected to.  The musical selections accompanying the readings from Broadway Melody were mostly non-obscure Broadway melodies and lyrics, supplemented by two contemporary pieces of special material: pastiche that fits into a particular period and style.  Unveiled for the first time for this nightclub night was “Out of Sight, Out of Mind,” created by the author’s special request of colleagues Lisa Lambert and Glen Kelly, who’d crossed musical paths on The Drowsy Chaperone.  Amirah Joy Lomax had the honor of debuting it and rose to the occasion very well indeed. Commenting on the lot of a female musical theatre performer boxed into doing stereotype demure roles, with high hopes and high soprano notes, was “Recovering Ingenue.” Laura Benanti dazzled with this delight she co-wrote with Todd Almond. It was especially effective in its placement, following in immediate contrast to a classic example of innocent ingenue wistfulness: “It Might As Well Be Spring” (written by Rodgers & Hammerstein for the film State Fair which was adapted as a stage vehicle decades after the original movie and its its re-make).  

There was major applause welcoming star Kate Baldwin to the stage — and even more sustained clapping and cheering as she finished her masterfully mesmerizing rendition of “When Did I Fall in Love?” from Fiorello!  Also knocking her one number out of the park was Nicole Vanessa Ortiz, who brought emotion and pow to “Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home.”  I saw her striking work in the last few weeks in both Forbidden Broadway and one of the Cabaret Convention concerts, and she stopped the show here, too.

David Turner was the only male singer on the bill, amiably sharing with charming Loni Ackerman the suggestion from the senior citizen-centric 70, Girls, 70 to pay a call on grandma (“Go Visit”).  Other duets featured Talia Suskauer: one pairing her with jazz-comfortable Alysha Umphress (they are two pros who know their way around Broadway melodies via their Broadway credits); the other had her with Ayana François, a singer who struggled quite a bit with her solo of “Taking a Chance on Love.”

Cheerful, recruited Rebecca Spigelman served as a replacement – she had a paper to glance at for “Nowhere to Go But Up” (no connection to the same-named number in the movie Mary Poppins Returns, but she has a connection to the resourceful director and co-producer of the evening, Robert W. Schneider, appearing in his J2 Spotlight Musical Theater company). Connecting story and songs was an intriguing concept (a novel idea, if you’ll excuse the pun).  It offered a taste of the nostalgia, heartfelt perspectives, and period color in the historical fiction work by Jack Viertel who has many connections to musical theatre (producer, dramaturg, conceive, teacher, and author, etc., etc., not to mention his years shepherding the important Encores! series) and a familial connection to 54 Below (via his brother Tom Viertel, one of those who created the club). Some in the cast have connections to this veteran’s past projects and I’m betting that many of the Broadway fans in the house could connect to the Broadway-immersed characters in the book, too.  

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Photo of Mr. Viertel: Gustavo Monroy

Broadway Melody is available for purchase here.

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