By SHARON EBERSON
When Jennifer Simard, a redhead herself, launched into tunes associated with a trifecta of her favorite ginger-haired Broadway divas, I knew I was in for a pitch-perfect, wickedly funny time.
It was as if the three-time Tony nominee was doubling down on what I had predicted would be a bombshell blast of musical theater from one of Broadway’s best comedic actresses.
Simard opened the Trust Cabaret season on Monday on her day off from Tony-winning Best Musical Schmigadoon. She revealed that when she took over for Ana Gasteyer on September 8, she had a broken ankle. She stood through most of the show without a hitch, but to prove it, she showed off what looked like an electronic house monitor strapped to her ankle.
She entered singing One Night Only for the T9:30 p.m. show (the first of two shows was at 7), to an enthusiastic audience that included fans who had come from New York and Chicago to see her.
Simard, in a low-cut glittery gown, began her set talking about women who she has worked with and admired during a stage career that includes three Tony Award nominations and the first National Tour of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. I bring that up because, although she sang no songs from the show, she said the tour stop here 20 years ago was her favorite, a claim she made several times.
Back to the redheads, among them, Bernadette Peters, which sparked “Broadway Baby,” and her Hello, Dolly! castmate and star Bette Midler. Simard sang what she called a “cabaret version,” but I would call a heartfelt, of “Before the Parade Passes By.”
Best of all, she channeled Madeline Kahn in the rollicking rejection song, “Never,” from Comden & Green’s On the Twentieth Century, delivering lyrics such as Tell him, tell him I’ll strangle him! / Tell him, tell him I’m mangle him! with wicked glee. Her sustained final note on “I would rather diiiiiie,” was a doozy of a belt.
Fittingly, we later learned that the song she said she is most associated with, “Hurt Someone’s Feelings Today.” It’s the type of song that meshes with her latest Tony nomination, as Helen Sharp in Death Becomes Her.
From the musical, she chose the duet “That Was Then, This Is Now,” sung on Broadway with Christopher Sieber as Helen’s husband, Ernest, but here, with her accompanist, Steve Marzullo, plus a call-and-response with in-the-know audience members.
There was more audience participation to go along with a song and story that involved an emergency landing of an airplane carrying the Shrek cast in its pre-Broadway run. As Simard tells it, had the plane not landed safely, her biggest concern was that the headline would read: “Sutton Foster and others die in crash.”
(Image: Matthew Murphy)
Singing a song that was Foster’s as Fiona, one that didn’t make it to Broadway, she brought to the stage two audience members to fill the roles of “Ketchup and Mustard,” so-called because one wore red and the other yellow, as Fiona’s ladies in waiting. The girls were given aprons with apt logos (in the shape of Heinz labels, I should add) and told to get on their knees and act like they were fixing her dress as she sang. It got pretty silly, but it was a reminder that sometimes you play roles that are barely noticed, and sometimes you understudy Patti LuPone while at the same time, you are nominated for a Tony (as Sara) in the 2021-22 revival of Company.
Her 10 Broadway credits are mostly in musical comedies, but Simard has played the ingenue as well. A role that sustained her through the early years of her career was in I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. She sang the song “I Will Be Love Tonight,” with delicacy and incredible vocal control, along with the original choreography … walking across the stage.
Simard also took a step back from the mostly light tone of the cabaret to dedicate The Beatle’s Yesterday to her friend, Rebecca Luker, the great Broadway actress who died of ALS during COVID.
Other standouts were the rapid-fire “All for the Best” from Godspell, which began with Marzullo singing and Simard joining in with sound effects such as a slide whistle and coconut shells.
The cabaret ended too soon, with Simard and Marzullo singing “Never Can Say Goodbye,” one of her big numbers as Sister Mary Downey (her first Tony nomination) in Disaster!
Her cabaret was anything but, of course.
SONG LIST
One Night Only
Broadway Baby
Unexpected Song
More to the Story
Never
Before the Parade Passes By
All the Best
Two Kinsmen
I Will Be Love Tonight
Here’s to the Ladies who Lunch
Hurt Someone’s Feelings Today
Yesterday
That Was Then, This Is Now
Never Can Say Goodbye
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