Silver in the Cellar, Christine Ebersole and Billy Stritch at 54 Below
The two-time Tony winner and her pianist mark 25 years together with five 7 pm shows under West 54th Street, ending on Halloween night
Christine Ebersole and her longtime pianist Billy Stritch are celebrating 25 years of working together with a five-night run at 54 Below that ends on Saturday, October 31, according to the 54 Below listing.
The room is a cellar under Studio 54, the Broadway house on West 54th Street. The ceiling is low and the tables are close. Doors open at 5:30. At 7 the lights go down, Stritch sits at the piano, and a two-time Tony winner walks a few steps to the microphone.
The run opened on Tuesday, October 27. The remaining shows are tonight, Friday and Saturday, all at 7 pm.
Who Are Ebersole and Stritch?
Ebersole is a Broadway leading lady with two Tony Awards for best actress in a musical. She won in 2001 as Dorothy Brock, the fading star of the 42nd Street revival, and in 2007 for playing both Big Edie and Little Edie Beale in Grey Gardens. Born in Winnetka, Illinois, in 1953, she spent the 1981 to 1982 season in the cast of Saturday Night Live and turned up on film in Tootsie and Amadeus.
Stritch is a jazz pianist, singer and arranger from Houston. He spent about 23 years as Liza Minnelli's music director and pianist, and in 2001 he was on the 42nd Street stage himself, playing Oscar, the rehearsal pianist. He and Ebersole have recorded together on In Your Dreams in 2005 and Sunday in New York in 2008, according to his Wikipedia biography.
The 54 Below listing ties the evening to 42nd Street and Grey Gardens, the two shows that won her the Tonys and that it names as the start of their partnership.
What Did the Critics Say?
BroadwayWorld's Stephen Mosher saw the opening and was won over. His review ran Wednesday under the verdict "Pure Perfection."
"Christine Ebersole is a wonder, and no mistake, and she is in remarkable voice."
That is Mosher's line. He closes on the same note. "It doesn't get better than this," he writes, and he calls the pair "treasures."
He reports a set built on standards and show tunes. "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries," "Jersey Bounce" and "Something Good" are in it, along with "Somewhere That's Green" from Little Shop of Horrors and a 42nd Street medley that includes the title song. Stritch takes a solo on "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby."
The center of the evening, by his account, is a run of ballads, "Lush Life" and "It Never Was You" among them, folded together with two songs from Grey Gardens in two medleys. It lasts about 13 minutes with no talking in between. Michael O'Brien plays bass, Warren Odze plays drums and Aaron Heick plays reeds.
The talk between songs is written, not improvised. Mosher notes scripted monologues that walk through the friendship, and he flags "The Ice Hotel" as a late surprise in the running order. He keeps the rest of the evening's surprises to himself, and so will we.
That structure is the point. A cabaret act is a concert with conversation, and this one is built like a scrapbook of two careers. The 42nd Street medley is where they started. The Grey Gardens ballads are where she won her second Tony. The standards are what the two of them have carried into rooms like this one, on stage and on record.
What to Know Before You Go
All five shows start at 7 pm, with doors at 5:30, at 54 Below, 254 West 54th Street. The listing gives general seats from $47 to $107.50, VIP seats at $135 and premium seats from $168 to $173, with fees included in each figure. A $25 food and beverage minimum applies. A small number of $18 subsidized seats are listed for October 28 and October 31 only.
By Suite 646's arithmetic, the cheapest night out for one person is $72, the lowest general seat plus the minimum, before any order charges the venue adds. On Halloween, with a subsidized seat, it can be $43.
For more nights in the same cellar, see David Yazbek's four-night stand. For the uptown version of the form, see St. Vincent's return to the Café Carlyle, where a 2009 engagement won Ebersole a 2010 Nightlife Award for outstanding cabaret vocalist.
Twenty-five years ago they first worked together on 42nd Street. This week they are twelve blocks north and one flight down, and the song is still the title song.
