Review: Tim Connell Makes Green Room 42 Debut With 'TIS THE SEASON

Well, kids, it’s here: the holiday season.  It’s all Christmas shows from now until the end of the year, and, possibly for even a few days after New Year’s Eve.  If you don’t like the Christmas shows, you might want to stay out of the clubs.  If, however, you are a person who wants to deck the halls and haul out the holly, you’re in good standing for a grand old time, so fire up the computer, hit every club website, and see what shows are going to be the holiday fare for you and your family.

Cabaret artist Tim Connell kicked off the season on November 29th at The Green Room 42 with his holiday show ‘TIS THE SEASON.  Mr. Connell seems to have a way with holiday acts - remember his wonderful St. Patrick’s Day show?  This new outing for the December holidays is a fine companion piece to go with Lucky Me!, and Mr. Connell is presenting it with the same panache and style with which he produces all his musical cabarets.  Connell, a cabaret artist in a class all his own, puts together each show he does with an artistic eye on his story arc and a personal eye on his authenticity.  Both qualities are vibrantly present in this new club act, a feat that can be tricky when doing a Christmas concert.  It would be very easy to get up on a stage and sing “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “The Man with the Bag” while rattling some jingle bells and call it a day… but not for Tim Connell.  The gentleman has worked with director Mark Chmiel to create a program of variety that isn’t always Christmas music and isn’t always joyful tidings.  Observe the fervor with which the velvet bedecked crooner storms the stage with his opening number, the Peter Allen pop song “Everything Old Is New Again,” and the introspection with which he approaches the Joni Mitchell modern-day-classic “River.”  While the former is all brightness and optimism, the latter can be as heartbreaking as the performer and the listener decide, together, it should be.  In Connell’s hands and inestimable skills, both songs come across as powerful performance pieces designed to satisfy his audience through both his acting and his vocals, and there is no disappointment.  Now, here’s the thing about “River” - people sing it at Christmastime because the lyrics mention Christmas, trees, reindeer, and songs of joy and peace… but it’s not a Christmas song.  It’s a song about relationships, about sadness, about regret - it just has a Christmas drive-by.  And thank goodness for all that because Tim Connell singing a song about relationships is why we all go to see his shows - for the storytelling.  And with this holiday outing, he has a bag of stories that he uses to set up each song.  He makes the musical offerings personal by relating them to things in his life, and that helps us to relate to the songs, the stories, and the man because we’ve been there.  Whether it’s “Black Friday” (with lyrics by Chmiel), “12 Drunken Days of Christmas (again, with lyrics by Chmiel), or “Christmas in Bed,” we have all been where each story sits.  What Tim Connell is laying down, we can pick up because this is a cabaret play, and one for grown-ups, set at Christmastime.  There’s nothing twee, it’s only Tim.  And that’s a gift.

As for the actual reason for the season, Connell doesn’t disappoint.  He does actually bring the Christmas to the show with a stunning “Some Children See Him” (maybe the best since Nancy LaMott), the gorgeous “God Bless My Family” by Ann Hampton Callaway, and a Carpenters mash-up of “An Old Fashioned Christmas” and “Merry Christmas Darling” that is simply divine.  It should be said that people need to steer clear of “Merry Christmas Darling” because it is too iconic in the Karen Carpenter voice, but Tim Connell should not steer clear because his is a voice as beautiful and expressive as the late, legendary Miss Carpenter.  Bravo!   There is a rather ambitious Christmas Carols medley at the end of the show that could use one or two more rehearsals, maybe some readjustments, as it got ever so slightly away from Mr. Connell - almost like the arrangement was singing him, and not the other way around.  Fortunately, there are a couple of weeks before ‘Tis The Season returns to The Green Room 42 on December 30th.  That will give Tim some time to get to know the room a little better, too.  This is the award winner’s first run at The Green Room 42, and his first time live streaming.  These last few years, Mr. Connell has been most regularly found at the uber-cozy downtown club Pangea, which is more like a living room concert space than a nightclub.  At TGR42, the stage is elevated and there is a bit of distance between the artists and the audience, and with those few feet separating Tim and his full house, the intimacy for which he is so well known suffered a slight loss, though he did a bang-on job of playing to the cameras, which is a tough road to navigate, and one all artists are going to have to because those live streams reach people around the world, people who want to be in on the action, especially when Tim Connell is on the stage.

For his premiere performance of ‘Tis The Season, Tim was well cared for by Ray Marchica on Drums, Sean Conly on Bass, Sheridan Glover on lights and sound, and Tim’s usual Musical Director, James Followell, at the piano conducting all of the arrangements he created for an evening that yielded particularly pleasing performances of Harry Nilsson’s “Remember” and Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne” (the Fogelberg piece was this writer’s personal favorite from the night).  Every moment of the ‘Tis The Season was typical Tim Connell, from tip to tail, and this new partnership with The Green Room 42 will be a good one because Tim Connell should be playing all of the rooms, in this city, and in others, any time of year, not just at Christmastime.  

Tim Connell’s ‘Tis The Season will encore at The Green Room 42 at 7 pm on December 30th.  THIS is the Green Room 42 website.

Tim Connell has a website HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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