There are many things I love about Kristin Chenoweth—who won audience’s hearts as, for starters, the pint-size philosopher Sally in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Broadway’s original bubblicious Glinda in Wicked—but perhaps chief among them is her commitment to young artists.
She (jokingly) calls herself a diva—and when you’ve won a Tony (Charlie Brown) and an Emmy (for TV’s short-lived but beloved Pushing Daisies) and recorded with the likes of Ariana Grande, Reba McEntire, and Dolly Parton (on her current album, For the Girls) you certainly have the right to. But her concerts, such as the current Kristin Chenoweth: For the Girls at Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre, are by no means one-woman shows. In For the Girls, she’s got two singers up there with her, Crystal Monee Hall and Marissa Rosen, and they’re doing much more than ooh-ing and ahh-ing; Hall even cowrote the show’s last song, “Reasons for Hope,” with Chenoweth’s longtime musical director, the dynamite Mary-Mitchell Campbell (or “MMC,” as KC calls her).
And there is always at least one guest: During the run of For the Girls, Chenoweth is bringing in a Glinda at every show. But it’s not only for a quick verse of “Popular.” The night I attended, the star left for a costume change and turned the stage over to Brittney Johnson, who sang “As If We Never Said Goodbye”—with the Barbra Streisand lyric revisions, FYI. Later, the opera-trained Chenoweth brought out badass mezzo Jamie Barton and gave the star of the Met’s recent Orfeo ed Euridice (she played Orfeo) her Broadway debut: Barton wowed the crowd with “Alto’s Lament”—“Please give me a chance to sing melody/ Give me a crack at the tune”—by Zina Goldrich and Marcy Heisler (they also wrote “Taylor, the Latte Boy,” a Chenoweth fan fave). After she bowed to Barton, Chenoweth ordered her offstage and considered stabbing her, Psycho-style, with a microphone. All in good fun, of course.
Ostensibly, For the Girls is a showcase for Chenoweth’s new album of the same title, and you’ll hear plenty of those songs: Lesley Gore’s girl-power anthem “You Don’t Own Me”; “Desperado,” the Eagles song immortalized by Linda Ronstadt; “The Man That Got Away,” from the Judy Garland version of A Star Is Born (Chenoweth pairs it with “Over the Rainbow” and sings both wearing a pair of sky-high red sequined shoes); the Alan Bergman–Marilyn Bergman–Marvin Hamlisch Oscar winner “The Way We Were,” backed only by Campbell’s wistful piano accompaniment; and “I Will Always Love You,” an ode to the woman Chenoweth calls “my queen,” Dolly Parton. You might have to wait for the encore for that beauty.
But she doesn’t stick solely to the album lineup. There’s also Trisha Yearwood’s “The Song Remembers When”; the Carpenters’ “Yesterday Once More”; and “How Great Thou Art,” a stunning tribute to another native Oklahoman, fellow soaring soprano Sandi Patti. “If you don’t love Jesus,” Chenoweth said in the introduction, “it’ll be over in four minutes.”
Between songs, Chenoweth cracked jokes about her love of 7-Eleven (she’s always sipping from one of the chain’s giant plastic cups), her upcoming Christmas movies for Netflix and the Hallmark Channel (she dubbed them “Naughty” and “Nice”), and even her skirt length. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said to a gentleman in the front row. “Or—you’re welcome!” She even gave fans a chance to snap photos at the top of the show. You’re welcome!
Kristin Chenoweth: For the Girls opened Nov. 8, 2019, and runs through Nov. 17 at the Nederlander Theatre. Tickets and information: officialkristinchenoweth.com
