Spotlight Cabaret with Robby Piggott
Spotlight Cabaret with Robby Piggott
Musical direction by Chris Leavy
Winter Park Playhouse, Winter Park FL</strong>
There’s a particular intimacy in cabaret, especially when the main man on stage is suffering from Facebook grade laryngitis. Mr. Piggott sent Facebook updates warning he might not perform due to voice problems. But he’s a trooper and with a jug of tea and whiskey he stood in the small clear space in front of the piano in the always elegant lobby of the Winter Park Playhouse. This was Piggott’s first cabaret, and his selection of music initially left musical director Chris Leavy at a loss: “People want to hear the standards!” was his advice. Piggott responded with a medley of 20 or so one liners ranging from “Touch-a-Touch-a-Touch Me” to “Oklahoma” to one of those endless Sondheim songs I can never place. Thus satisfying the traditionalist is happy he was free to break out into new ground. There was a theme here, he covered missionary songs sung in Hawaiian to “starlight Express” numbers in German, and gave us the cooks tour of his life and how musical theatre brought him happiness and reasonably regular employment. Despite his limited belting power, Piggott covered some great material I’ve never heard – “Contemporary Musical Theater Song” from “Mock Your World”, “The Vigil” from an obscure follow-on to “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown” and “Way Ahead of my Time” from “Ug, the Caveman Musical” all were wonderful. It shows that while people are slapping “…! The Musical” on everything from Pokémon to canned goods, occasionally a great show tune can pop out of the morass. Piggott’s selection of songs, boyish charm, and sincere delivery make up for any medical conditions, and I hope to see him return with fewer medial issues in the near future.
For more information on Winter Park Playhouse, please visit http://www.winterparkplayhouse.org
