T2C loves having different and varied reviews and articles on a performer. Here’s another for Jamie deRoy!
Written By Myra Chanin
Jamie deRoy is not only an endearing, enchanting and charming host/entertainer, she’s a theatrical powerhouse who attracts the most terrifically talented up and coming stars-to-be to join her on stage. Jamie has never invited anyone to perform with her in one of her intermittent Jamie deRoy & friends Cabaret Productions who is anything less than top drawer. Any performer that you, an audience member, enjoy, Jamie enjoys even more. She’s the handsome, stylish woman, sitting behind the bass player, kvelling through the entire show.
At Jamie’s shows you will always discover clever, capable and amusing artistes, currently creating and performing in New York City who deserve superstardom but haven’t quite climbed permanently to the top rung of the ladder yet. Like for instance who? Like Last Night’s Quartet/Sextet who joined Jamie on stage during her most recent edition of Jamie deRoy & friends at the always packed, hot, hot, hot new Manhattan nightclub, 54 Below, including …
The irrepressible multi-talented gifted singer and comic/impressionist Christina Bianco — currently starring in Newsical The Musical, whose drop dead impressions pilloried several famous female singers for being more recognizable for their excessive style than for their ability to provide lyrics with meaning.
Daniel Reichard –- an adorable former Jersey Boys star with a big musical theater voice, presently also touring the US as one of The Midtown Men
David Pomeranz, a versatile singer/songwriter who, in his spare time, supplied Barry Manilow with a few hits including Trying To Get the Feeling Again
The persistently hilarious Kevin Meaney, who killed, and is such a good son, God Bless Him, that he brings his totally negative mother along with him, wherever he performs, in his throat.
And two surprise guests, Countess, a puppet created by Bill Remington, who both joined Jamie in a rollicking rendition of The Grass is Always Greener with revised lyrics by Jamie’s director, Barry Kleinbort.
Jamie deRoy has won eight MAC Awards, four Backstage Bistro Awards, etc., etc. She’s appeared on stage with Joan Rivers and has headlined at many of New York’s major Clubs. She’s produced nine Jamie deRoy & Friends CD’s and more recently has begun producing Broadway Shows. You’ll see her name in the playbills of Nice Work if You Can Get It, Peter and the Starcatcher, Mother#$%^& with the Hat, The Norman Conquests, The Addams Family, etc. etc. How ‘s that for good theatrical judgment!
Jamie also deserves Hip, Hip, Hoorahs for being the first mature Manhattan dame who let her tresses go completely platinum. @#$%%^&! Her white hair actually makes her look younger! Jamie doesn’t exactly embrace senior citizen hood, she toys with it via new age-appropriate lyrics written for her by Barry Kleinbort to standards like Start of Something Big and Sixty Going on Seventy, a parody of Sixteen Going on Seventeen, which contained these heartwarming lines
I am sixty going on seventy
Pardon me if I carp.
What chance have I
Of dating a guy
Who doesn’t belong to AARP?
Don’t be misguided. Jamie deRoy’s material has universal appeal. A very demographically mixed audience howled, clapped, applauded and understood that the concepts Jamie sings about apply equally to people of all ages.
Jamie’s been celebrating her 30th birthday annually ever since she was 31, and she certainly has a present and a future. Last night on stage at the hot, hot, hot new 54 Below, Jamie did mention that when she first arrived in New York to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Tyne Daly was a classmate who became a friend. Tyne Daly was in the audience last night, applauding loudly, hanging around to talk to fans and hopefully checking out 54 Below for a future One Woman Show of her own.
Jamie has brought some fascinating writers/performers into my life via her series of nine Jamie deRoy & friends CD’s, including John Bucchino, who wrote a song I never get tired of hearing entitled That Smile — the lead song of the Jamie deRoy and Friends CD #7, and David Buskin, formerly of Modern Man whose comic songs, particularly Jews Don’t Camp, is sung by Jamie on her Wishing On the Moon CD, all available at CDBaby.com. These CD’s present a compilation of her all-inclusive personality. And everything on every one of them is a winner, just like Jamie deRoy.
*Photo by Stephen Sorokoff
Posted by Sandi Durell
on July 17, 2012. Filed under Cabaret,Cabaret and Interviews - Sandi Durell,COLUMNS,ENTERTAIMENT.
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