Before the curtain rises on Harry Connick Jr.–A Celebration of Cole Porter, in addition to the standard cellphone-off, no-photography-allowed warnings, the announcer has a rather unusual request of the audience members, from Connick himself: He’d like us to “refrain from posting” details about the show to social media—so we don’t spoil things for future theatergoers.
Perhaps, then, this review should simply say that singer-actor-musician Harry Connick Jr. has taken up residency at Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre for a couple weeks with A Celebration of Cole Porter.
Hopefully Connick will forgive me if I add just a few more details.
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★★★ review here.]
Connick’s all-Porter program includes staples such as the bang-up title number from Anything Goes (featuring the new-to-me lyric “When senators and legislators start / Calling each other traitors and/ So-and-sos/ Anything goes”); Can-Can’s nostalgic valentine “I Love Paris”; the jazzy “Just One of Those Things,” from Jubilee; Kiss Me, Kate’s “Why Can’t You Behave?”; the stunningly lush “Begin the Beguine”; and the spell-binding “You Do Something to Me.” Coincidentally, all of those—plus most of the others he performs—can be found on his just-released album, True Love: A Celebration of Cole Porter. (Surely he didn’t want us to leave out that detail.)
Now, don’t expect the affable Connick to just plop down at the piano and sing. He certainly plays—at a grand piano and, at one point, on a variety of uprights. But at this point in his career, Connick is as much a performer as he is a musician—albeit one who did all the arrangements and orchestrations for every song in this show, thank you very much. And this certainly isn’t his first Broadway rodeo. (Counting his two previous concert stints, in 1990 and 2010, it’s his fifth; I’m not including 2001’s Thou Shalt Not, for which he wrote the music and lyrics but in which he didn’t star.) The man who headlined The Pajama Game and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever is going to bring a little personality to the proceedings—particularly if he’s crooning moody numbers such as “Love for Sale,” where he’s accompanied beautifully by bassist Neal Caine, and “Mind If I Make Love to You?” Connick calls the latter—originated by Frank Sinatra in the 1956 film of High Society—his favorite Porter song.
I hope I don’t earn the artist’s ire for letting this detail slip: At one point, Connick breaks off for a jam session on the song “Take Her to the Mardi Gras” with six of the 25 (that’s right, 25!) orchestra members at “the Hall”—as in Preservation Hall in his native New Orleans. It just got me thinking: What I wouldn’t give to see Connick play a full NOLA-style jazz concert! Perhaps for his next Broadway stint?
Harry Connick Jr.–A Celebration of Cole Porter opened Dec. 12, 2019, and runs through Dec. 29 at the Nederlander Theatre. Tickets and information: harryconnickjr.com/tour
