Review: Promising GOOD SHOW! PODCAST LAUNCH CABARET Plays 54 Below

Podcasting is all the rage these days, and it has been for a while now, with many different people with many different interests creating podcasts that they hope will be the next big thing.  And where people once simply listened to the radio or audiobooks, they can now listen to podcasts about everything under the sun, and they do.  Podcasts are the here and the now of entertainment, and starting one's own podcast is cause for celebration.

Sisters Kristen and Sarah Goodman have just launched their podcast titled GOOD SHOW! on the Broadway Podcast Network (the link is HERE) and, in celebration, the musical theater proficients took their act to the stage at 54 Below in a cabaret that played Broadway’s Living Room on August 15th.  The program, Musical Directed by the wonderful Julianne B. Merrill, was a charming evening of Broadway music performed by two women who, very clearly, have done their homework.  Both Sarah and Kristen Goodman are singing actors who have trained for their profession, leaving them equipped to sing and act their faces off in any show that any director might be wise enough to cast them.  The super close siblings have singing voices that are powerful and palatable, and acting skills that lean into the bright and comedic (as was Kristen’s “Kansas City” from Oklahoma) and deep and heartfelt (like Sarah’s “If He Walked Into My Life” from Mame) and their mutual abilities with harmony are more than impressive, as was evidenced early in the performance when the Goodmans sang an acapella version of “St Bridget” from Mame that was straight up gorgeous.  It cannot be denied that these two women of the theater should be working on the stage - and if the powers of the show business world ever leave the sisters out in the cold, the ladies have the makings of a fine club act.  They are charming, witty, personable, and ready to be their authentic selves on the cabaret stage, all the while singing the songs that a well-trained musical theater performer could, should, and would sing for their supper.  

The focus of the GOOD SHOW! PODCAST LAUNCH CABARET was, naturally enough, the podcast, one that centers on their mutual love of musical theater, as well as the familial upbringing that laid the foundation for that love.  The episode of the podcast in the spotlight on Tuesday night was their “Summer Stock Series” and the Goodmans shared stories about their lives as theater kids at a regional theater where their stepfather was the artistic director and where their mother played leading roles in plays like Mame, Hello, Dolly!, and Oklahoma!.  In spoken segments occurring in real-time during the show, and in lengthy clips from the podcast, the Goodmans recounted the tales of their childhood for an audience that seemed to both appreciate and relate to the regional theater rhetoric.  Many New Yorkers were not always New Yorkers, and many have had experience in regional and community theater, so these stories served to remind of the good old days of either performing in or attending theaters upon which the stage is populated by people we all know, rather than out of town actors passing through on tour.  The stories were heartwarming and sisters were a delight as they enthusiastically shared those stories.  But where Sarah and Kristen really made major marks was in their passionately informed discussion of the three shows in the episode because they had gone to the length of visiting the New York City Public LIbrary For The Performing Arts At Lincoln Center to watch archival recordings of the plays.  Their cute and clever three bullet point critiques of the shows was very effective, particularly when both Goodmans had matching strong opinions regarding the revival of Oklahoma! that were very amusing and amusingly expressed.  Of course, it went without saying that these critiques were merely truncated versions of those from the podcast, and each time that a show was discussed, Kristen and Sarah reminded their audience that their full review was available on the Good Show! Podcast.  Between their reviews of these shows (Broadway’s Hello, Dolly! and Oklahoma! revivals, and the Paper Mill Playhouse Mame production) and their reminiscences of Midwestern theater life, their cabaret (and, one suspects, their podcast) is a slice of theater nerd heaven, and the Goodmans have a promising future in cabaret, although this writer does have some gentle notes that they might find useful, since there was mention of future cabaret outings tied to the podcast.

From the snippets of the Good Show! Podcast, it is obvious that Sarah and Kristen are good orators and, perhaps more importantly, good writers - because it all starts in the writing.  Listening to the stories being told in the podcast, one couldn’t help but notice the care taken in crafting the words, the sentences, the syntax upon which the narration is built.  So it might serve the sisters to consider writing a script for their cabaret show.  If they did write a script for the 54 Below performance it did not show.  Both women are strong storytellers with a good sense of levels, timing, and entertainment.  However, there was an element of verbosity to the proceedings, as well as a random nature that veered off the path too often, with stories about a friend who was supposed to appear in their show but who couldn’t, and stories about The Broadway Kids, the Callaway sisters, and Barbra Streisand, all of which were sweet but none of which were germane to the subjects of Good Show!, Mame, Oklahoma!, or Hello, Dolly!, even though Streisand was the star of the film.  The unfocused nature of the rhetoric rendered the air of the evening to the amateur, and it is patently clear that neither Kristen nor Sarah Goodman are amateurs.  As professional performers, podcasters, and, now, cabaret artists, their programming must be contained in the slickest possible manner.  A right and proper cabaret requires focus and meaning, an arc with highs and lows, with rhythm and reason, and purpose.  When engaged in the craft of storytelling, everything must be intentional, and as well-meaning, as loving, as benevolent as their tangential stories on Tuesday night, those tangents took away from the purpose of their play:  to introduce their podcast.  Of course, then they would sing, and all would be forgiven.  These women are amazing musical performers who should be working all of the time - and although this writer has not listened to the podcast (that is a different type of review altogether), there is hope that the sisters sing at some point during the podcast.  As far as their cabaret work goes, this was a good first effort, and the second one has the possibility of being very good, if a script and a director (none is listed in the credits) are employed to shine it up a bit, sort of smooth up the rough edges.  Kristen Goodman and Sarah Goodman, whether working together or working the solo shift, have the bona fide, and this show was a nice way to introduce them and their new venture, the GOOD SHOW! Podcast to the community.  They should be interesting to watch, and this writer and desk sends them good wishes and hopes for the podcast.

Find great shows to see on the 54 Below website HERE.

Visit the websites for Sarah Goodman HERE, for Kristen Goodman HERE, and for Julianne B. Merrill HERE.

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