Review: Jennifer Roberts Sings Harnick's Hidden Treasures at Green Room 42

It was wonderful watching cabaret singer Jennifer Roberts return to the work of one of her favorite lyricists, Sheldon Harnick. The Tuesday April 30th show in celebration of what would have been Harnick’s 100th birthday (sadly, he passed away last June at age 99) featured selections of some of Harnick’s most well-known songs and delightful obscurities plucked from the archives. Several of the songs Roberts sung, Harnick himself had sent her sheet music for that wasn’t publicly available.

Roberts started doing these birthday shows for Harnick several years ago (he even went to one of them, an honor Roberts talked about during this show). She was introduced by the show's director, Lance Roberts ("Of no relation," he joked. "Actually, I'm her father.")

With the inimitable Tedd Firth on piano and serving as Music Director, the show’s music was flawless. Firth has an incredible ear for blending melodies together on the piano, and he arranged two lovely mashups that Roberts sang deliciously: placing Passionella’s “Gorgeous” in the middle of “Oh, To Be a Movie Star” so that the character goes from chimney sweep daydreaming about Hollywood, to having the wish fulfilled, back to a bittersweet ending note back in her chimney sweep reality. (In a sweet note, Firth played the song out on the notes of the 20th Century Fox theme). Steve Doyle provided steady, solid accompaniment on bass.

Throughout the show, Roberts talked about her own life and her relation to Harnick: how she discovered his music, and then later discovered even more gems from the Hidden Treasures album, published in 2014. She began corresponding with Harnick, and he wrote back! (Roberts sang “Vanilla Ice Cream” from She Loves Me, along with reading some of her letters back and forth with the lyricist.) She took the audience on a kind of informal history of Harnick’s life, starting with some of his earliest work, “The Ballad of the Shape of Things” (New Faces of 1952) and “Just My Luck” (The Body Beautiful) and ending on a touching mashup of “One Family” from A Christmas Carol, and “In My Own Lifetime” from The Rothschilds, the last show Bock and Harnick ever wrote together.

Roberts dug deep on some lesser known Harnick works, including one of my favorites, “Where Do I Go from Here,” which was cut from Fiorello! Roberts mentioned that they’re working on collecting some of the more obscure songs into an album, which would be just wonderful.

Learn more about Jennifer Roberts and where to follow her on her website (and make sure you save the date for her next Harnick show next April).

Find more shows to see at the Green Room 42 on their website.

(Header photo credit Maryann Lopinto)

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