Five of L.A.’s most talented triple-treats performing twenty-nine Kander & Ebb gems add up to one non-stop entertaining evening of musical theater as Reprise 2.0 treats audiences to its sensationally performed, imaginatively directed, gorgeously designed The World Goes ‘Round.

 Conceived for off-Broadway back in 1991 by Scott Ellis, Susan Stroman, and David Thompson, The World Goes ‘Round features a crowd-pleasing medley of songs culled not only from John Kander and Fred Ebb’s most celebrated Broadway blockbusters (Cabaret and Chicago to be specific) but also from Kiss Of The Spider Woman, The Happy Time, Zorba, 70, Girls, 70, The Act, Woman of the Year, The Rink, and Flora, The Red Menace.

Reprise 2.0-debuting director Richard Israel aces the first of his duties by casting a quintet of SoCal’s most versatile musical theater stars, then tailors song to performer and performer to song.

 Solos like Dawnn Lewis’s deeply felt “My Coloring Book,” Kelley Dorney’s sassy “All That Jazz” and her touching “A Quiet Thing,” the latter paired with Michael Starr’s über-romantic “Marry Me,” Valerie Perri’s sensuous “Kiss Of The Spider Woman,” and Larry Cedar’s delightfully droll “Mr. Cellophane” showcase individual talents to powerful effect.

 Add to that John Todd’s captivating choreography and its hints of Fosse, Bennett, and Robbins and you’ve got full-cast showstoppers like an exuberant “Coffee In A Cardboard Cup,” a life-affirmative “Yes,” a ukulele-strumming “Me & My Baby,” a multilingual “New York, New York,” and a reinvented “The Money Song” and “Cabaret” that showcase the Joel Gray/Liza Minnelli classics in a whole new light.

Lewis and Perri’s “Class” not only poses an age-old question (“Why is it everyone now is a pain in the ass?”) but doing so over the latest print edition of the L.A. Times gives the duet a fresh, sad-but-true contemporary relevance, and when Lewis (of TV’s A Different World) meets a star-struck but misinformed Dorney (“I loved you on The Cosby Show!”), the lives they compare in “The Grass Is Always Greener” earn just as many laughs as the song does cheers.

 Perri’s nostalgia-inducing “Colored Lights,” Dorney’s peppy “How Lucky Can You Get,” and the tight five-part harmonies of “There Goes the Ball Game” are winners as well, while Cedar’s adoring tribute to “Sara Lee” features backup singers Dorney, Lewis, and Perri sporting the most scrumptious-looking headgear in town.

Perri’s saucy “Arthur in the Afternoon” has her cavorting with Starr’s sexy, strip-teasing gigolo, tap-lovers can rejoice in seeing Starr and Dorney doing their best Gene Kelly-Debbie Reynolds in “Shoe Dance,” and on a more serious note, “I Don’t Remember You” and “Sometimes A Day Goes By” are touchingly performed, first individually by Starr and Cedar and then in aching counterpoint.

 Vocal solos and harmonies are in the expert hands of musical director Gerald Sternbach as is the show’s Broadway-caliber onstage band*, with Jonathan Burke ensuring a pitch-perfect sound design mix every step of the way.

Last but not least, scenic designer Stephen Gifford’s elegant nightclub-style set and Shon LeBlanc’s spiffy black-hued costumes look even more splendid under Jared A. Sayeg’s spectacular lighting design.

The World Goes ‘Round is presented by producing artistic director Marcia Seligson in association with UCLA TFT Department Of Theater.

Casting is by Michael Donovan, CSA. Jill Gold is production stage manager. Matthew Herrmann is general manager and Kevin Bailey is executive producer.

Sandwiched between the bigger-cast. bigger-budgeted, plot-propelled Sweet Charity and Grand Hotel, Kander & Ebb’s The World Goes ‘Round proves the perfect antidote to the late-summer blues. To quote another songwriting great, “Who could ask for anything more?”

*Albie Berk, Phil Feather, Charles Morillas, Adrian Rosen, Sternbach, Michael Stever, and Ed Vodicka

Freud Playhouse, Macgowan Hall, 245 Charles E Young Dr E , Los Angeles.
www.reprise2.org

–Steven Stanley
September 5, 2018
Photos: Michael Lamont

Tags: Kander & Ebb, Los Angeles Theater Review, Reprise 2.0