The takeaway message of ta-da! is that time is short and life is precious. By all means then, let’s be brief regarding ta-da!, a semi-precious solo piece composed and engagingly performed by Josh Sharp, a 30s-something gay comedian best known so far as a writer-performer for Dicks: The Musical.
Opening on Monday at Greenwich House for a five-week stay, ta-dah! for the most part presents Sharp amusingly chattering away in comedy club mode about his times currently living in New York City. While Sharp talks, his airy remarks about subway face-offs, tourists brandishing huge golf umbrellas and typical urban annoyances are more or less typographically rendered into a series of PowerPoint slides projected behind him. A clicker in hand, Sharp advises viewers that he has memorized and will be cueing up some 2,000 slides over the next 80 minutes. Such is the dramatic engine that drives his autobiographical event.
A gangling, gleeful white boy in a bowl haircut and black, high water pants, Sharp is a Southern transplant pleased to be perceived as a New Yorker. Accompanying an adorable family photo of himself doing a card trick as a boy magician, Sharp notes how ta-dah! happens to be his code word for gay; illustrating it by gesturing palms upwards in a not-quite-Judy Garland pose. Speaking of being gay, Sharp humorously chats at some length about massage parlors, masturbation, why he remained in the closet until age 22, how a doctor once told him that STDs were “a sign you’re making friends” and similar sex-related doings. Delivering this comical content in a bright, stand-up manner, Sharp keeps on clicking up those slides.
Eventually, Sharp’s blithe, self-aware discourse grows serious when he relates his mother’s remarkable battle with ovarian cancer, and then how he was knocked unconscious and nearly drowned in the surf at Puerta Vallarta last year. Thus the sober takeaway about the significance of time, which to some degree elevates what is mostly a giddy little comedy act. Sharp sweetly and appropriately ends his show with a card trick.
The smart, award-winning director of Oh, Mary! among other recent events, Sam Pinkleton supports the comedian with first-rate accouterments. Other than loud, pounding techno music and disorienting lights flashing in the auditorium during the pre-show period, which had spectators practically shouting at each other (the psychological benefit of this warm-up is puzzling), the show is simply and neatly designed. The handsome artwork and font design of the words behind Sharp’s performance offer some amusing visuals. Ending on a personal note concerning this vital subject of time, let’s remark that last Friday’s audience looked to be in the age 40s and under demographic, and they were laughing far more during the funny parts of those 80 minutes than old ta-da Boomer me.
ta-da! opened July 21, 2025, at the Greenwich House Theater and runs through August 23. Tickets and information: www.joshsharptada.com
