Get Happy!
Winter Park Playhouse
Starring Chris Leavy
Spotlight Cabaret Series
Winter Park, FL
Winter Park Playhouse broke its fifth wall tonight as Chief piano player Chris Leavy present a cabaret with music from “The Doctor Demento” show including Tom Lehrer, Homer and Jethro, and best of all “The Cockroach that Ate Cincinnati”. And you through they were just a bunch of Broadway purists. Admittedly, this set was near the end of the program, but no one got up and left, so we might be seeing a turn toward the absurd in this bastion of show tunes. As WPPH’s pianist in chief, this really was a one man show with a nearly full house. The opening set relied heavily on the Rose and Crown material Mr. Levey rousingly sings in his Day Job, but that, too was lovely, if not at all weird. We picked up some child hood anecdotes, and few stories of sitting behind the ivories and dealing with the drunks and trouble makers, and like all good entertainers, Mr. Leavy can both read music AND handle a crowd. The rest of the evening was a blur. Show tunes, anecdotes, and desires fulfilled and some still in search mode filled the time, and it was a great opportunity to see this Piano God with no script to tie him down. I can only vaguely recall a time when Mr. Levey was NOT the leader of the band, he’s as much a Winter Park Institution as Rollins and on street parking.
