Florida Studio Theatre is paying tribute to the crooners and audiences are — true to the title — “Feeling Good.”
With the introduction of the microphone, a whole new style of vocalist was born: the crooner. No longer required to belt out songs to the far reaches of clubs and auditoriums, signers like Bing Crosby began adopting a nuanced, conversational tone. Cabaret Director Catherine Randazzo has orchestrated a show at Florida Studio Theatre that recalls some of the greatest crooners in American musical history.
“’Feeling Good’ in the Court Cabaret is a tribute to the crooners, and we go all the way from the Frank Sinatra lovers to Michael Buble’, Harry Connick Jr., and kind of retell the stories of how the crooner became so popular and why,” said Randazzo. “And we even throw in some popular stuff, Lady Gaga and Bette Midler and some Jason Derulo.”
The performers do more than sing.
“Rebecca Hopkins writes bridge material or dialogue tailored to the artists that are performing,” explains Randazzo. “So, it gives snippets and stories that are interesting and kind of humorous in the way that we connect the songs and are sometimes very deeply emotional.”
The show also demonstrates how early crooners like Crosby, Sinatra and Tony Bennett have influenced generations of singers.
“One of the things that strikes the audience, especially in act two of ‘Feeling Good,’ is how that music influenced the artists of today and how the artists of today make it sound like it could have been sung in the '40s or the '50s or the '60s,” Randazzo said. “And so the meld of those two song genres, they fit beautifully together, and the audience hears some new things or hears songs done in new ways.”
“Feeling Good” plays in the Court Theatre in Sarasota through Feb. 1.
MORE INFORMATION:
“Feeling Good” is in the Court Cabaret.
Similar to the Goldstein Cabaret, the Court was built in 2021.
The show was conceived by Rebecca and Richard Hopkins, with musical arrangements by Jim Prosser.
While many associate crooners with the Rat Pack, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., along with Bing Crosby (who was nicknamed ‘America’s Crooner’), Tony Bennett and even Fred Astaire, the genre actually got its start in the 1920s, an era denoted by flappers, swing dancing, jazz and Prohibition.
Rudy Vallee is credited with mainstreaming the genre. He used the microphone to create an intimate, understated, romantic style that later artists like Crosby and Sinatra replicated and expanded.
That intimacy engendered fandom. Listeners identified with and idolized performers who, for the first time, became pop icons, a stature that was reinforced and augmented by the introduction of radio, television and film.
While the crooner fell out of favor with the advent of rock and roll and replacement of the big band and jazz orchestra by four- and five-man bands such as The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Beach Boys, that soft, subtle, intimate style of music has experienced something of a resurgence in the past decade, as evidenced by the success of collaborations like the one between Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga.
That duo collaborated on two albums, “Cheek to Cheek” (2014) and “Love for Sale” (2021). The success of those albums signals renewed interest in crooners and the crooner genre. “Love for Sale” debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and became the duo's second top 10 entry. It also garnered Bennett the individual record for the longest span of top 10 albums for any living artist. His first top 10 record was “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” in 1962. Bennett also broke the Guinness World Record for the oldest person to release an album of new material, at the age of 95 years and 60 days.
At the Grammys, the album won Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, and was nominated for Album of the Year, while the track "I Get a Kick Out of You" was nominated for Record of the Year, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and Best Music Video.
From Florida Studio Theatre’s perspective, “Feeling Good” represents something of a full-circle moment.
“Each season, we’ve been illustrating the different ways that rock and roll impacted music genres,” Randazzo noted. “We started with the ‘50s and then the next year we did the ‘60s and the ‘70s. But then realized we hadn't gone back to the Golden Era, and that's where ‘Feeling Good’ came in. We needed to get back to some of that Golden Era music and pay tribute to that and give the audience a break from pop or rock and roll.”
The show includes favorites like “Come Fly with Me,” “The Best Is Yet to Come,” “Moondance,” “That Old Black Magic,” “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” and more.
Equal parts class and sass, “Feeling Good” will leave audiences – well – feeling good.
The cast includes Haley K. Clay, Andrew Leggieri and Russell Mernagh.
This is Clay’s Florida Studio Theatre Debut. Her credits include (international) “Burn the Floor,” Royal Caribbean, Holland America and Norwegian Cruise Lines and (regional) “Parade” (Lucille Frank, Elliot Norton Award Best Musical, Best Actress Nominee), “Cabaret” (Fritzie, U/S Sally Bowles), “Mary Poppins” (Miss Andrew), “Sondheim's The Frogs” (Virilla the Amazon). She has an MFA in musical theatre from The Boston Conservatory and serves as the co-chair of Musical Theatre Faculty at The Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts. Her career has taken her to over 71 countries on all seven continents.
Leggieri is also making his Florida Studio Theatre debut. He was in the original cast of “Bandstand” on Broadway and in tours of “Spamalot,” “Fame” and “Grease.” He appeared Off-Broadway and regionally in “Wizard of Oz,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “The Bandstand,” “Mary Poppins,” “Dreamgirls,” “Sugar,” “A Class Act,” “Grease,” “Cabaret,” “Damn Yankees,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Singing in the Rain,” “Little House on the Ferry” and “The Human Comedy.” He also appeared on TV in “Unforgettable.” Leggier has a BFA from Penn State University.
Mernagh, too, is making his FST debut. His favorite credits include “The Play That Goes Wrong” (Off-Broadway, Broadway in Chicago), “The Matchbox Magic Flute” (Goodman Theatre, Shakespeare DC, Berkeley Rep), “Little Shop of Horrors” (Paramount Theatre), “The Comedy of Errors” and “Ride the Cyclone” (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre).
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.
