Singing Along with the NYC Gay Men's Chorus, Part II

The audience sing-along segment of the New York City Gay Men's Chorus' (NYCGMC) December holiday concert, joining the 150 singers in seasonal caroling, has always been one the most popular parts of its end-of-year effort. Consequently, the Chorus scheduled a full evening of singing along, last March, called "The Big Gay Sing," which was so well received that the group did an encore, "The Big Gay Sing 2," this March 25 (and 26), at the same location, New York University's Skirball Center, with the same host, comic Scott Nevins, under Artistic Director Dr. Charles Beale's baton, and we had a gay old time at this year's event as well, singing contemporary and classic pop music and show tunes with our glorious guys! Jeff Lettiere was stage director, and Christopher D. Littlefield, the pianist; trumpeter Brian Pareschi, woodwind player Matt Hong, trombonist Bruce Bonvissuto, guitarist Courtney Sappington, bassist Jason DiMatteo, and drummers Sue Hadjopoulos and Dan Gross made up the band; and Tom McGillis provided sign language interpretation. Last spring, the special guest star was Andrea McArdle, the original Annie, and this year's illustrious guest was Petula Clark.



photo courtesy of NYCGMC
Petula Clark
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Assisted by a trio of big-haired, flashily-costumed Dreams (Tym Byerz, Joshua Ebi and Ron Castro), the choristers lent their hardy sound to Henry Krieger's title song from "Dreamgirls," and-with a black-leather-jacketed 'George Michael' (Aaron Holtz), backed by a cop, a figure skater, an athlete, a soldier, an activist in a "Legalize Gay" tee-shirt, a student, someone in sunglasses and purple coat, a priest, a mayor, a gay dad, and a chef, dancers representing our diverse population-to "Freedom."

Then we got to the part for what Beale had called "show queens," with a Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's "Sound of Music" sing-along, which began with Nevins, "fulfilling a lifelong dream" by playing Maria von Trapp, leading us in "Do Re Mi." We joined NYCGMC and onstage 'von Trapp children' in "My Favorite Things;" a Liesl (D. Brendan Marchesani) and Rolf (Clete Larkey), who texted each other before they danced, in "You Are Sixteen;" Nevins and a guitar-bearing Captain von Trapp (Casey Haltorn) in "Edelweiss;" and, with the children scaling a stage-left metal staircase for an Alp, "Climb Every Mountain." Nevins introduced the next section for what he called "Broadgays" by urging "please donate to my charity, Save a Gay Child, buy them a musical," and singing "A boy like that, who killed your brother ... Oh, no, Anita, no, you should know better," before the "Tonight" ensemble from Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's "West Side Story," with a svelte Anita (Eugene Lovendusky), a shaved-headed Tony (Angelo Cilia) serenading his bearded Maria (Ransom G. Bruce) atop the staircase, her fire escape, and a muscular Riff (Tyrel Starks) in a tank top.

Television got a nod with a "Glee" portion, a sing-along of Cain, Perry, and Schon's "Don't Stop Believin'," while a trio of "Sound of Music" nuns (Mark-Edward Wadley, Mark McManus, and Mark Schrader) kept watchful eyes on us to make sure we were singing, and a "Big Gay Idol" segment, in which the audience voted between singers Marsha Mercant, from West New York, New Jersey, and Sierra Rein, a Californian, from the group Marquee 5, who sing at Don't Tell Mama, both offering plangent accounts of part of Kander and Ebb's "Maybe This Time," from the film of "Cabaret," with head tone for the highest notes, the winner to return to later in the program.

We got to sing ever-sweet-voiced Petula Clark's 1960s hit "Downtown" with her and the chorus, assisted by pianist Grant Struiale. Later, describing Norma Desmond's song as being about the "great star she was-is-always will be," Clark came back, with her musical director, for a strikingly nuanced "With One Look," from Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Sunset Boulevard," in which she had starred, in London.

Following Benjamin Coleman and the chorus' fervent rendition of the late Freddie Mercury and Queen's "We Are the Champions," came an ebullient "Weather Medley" sing-along. For Paul Jabara's "It's Raining Men," we had a trio of Weathergirls (Paul Maulucci, Rob Castro, and Lamont W. Mundell), twirling "I ♥ New York" umbrellas and courted by a trio of hunky dancers (Seth Watsky, Tym Byerz-no longer a Dreamgirl, and Jamie Harris). Nacio Herb Brown's "Singing in the Rain" found Clete Larkey getting dirty looks from police officer Jerry Irwin Christman for tap dancing in the street, and Jule Styne's "Don't Rain on My Parade," from "Funny Girl," brought out the Barbra Streisand in all of us. After Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now," an exhilarating "Let the Sunshine In," by MacDermot, Ragni and Rado, from "Hair," with colorfully costumed 'flower children' dancing in the aisles, took us to intermission.

The concert resumed with salutes to Lady Gaga, with an exuberant sing-along of "Bad Romance," featuring "gay men, drag queens [Joshua Ebi as Lady Gaga], and leather daddies," said Nevins, describing the Republican nightmare the singers and dancers represented, and Beyoncé Knowles, with "Single Ladies," an encore from last spring's "Sing" and NYCGMC's appearance on "America's Got Talent," sung by the chorus 'straight,' grand opera style, double and triple time, extra slowly and, courtesy of Nevins, Judy Garland-style.

In addition to singing light-hearted selections, NYCGMC raised a number of serious issues. As part of its Pride season concert, "High," at Skirball on June 30 at 8 p.m., the chorus will present a new work, Michael Shaieb's "Through a Glass, Darkly," about drug addiction, as part of its "campaign," as Beale put it, against crystal meth, and here, dulcet-toned Michael Osso and NYCGMC gave us a preview of Shaieb's opus with a moving performance of the song "If You Only Knew." The choristers protested Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) with a wordless vocalise version of John Phillip Sousa march "Stars and Stripes Forever," at first a cappella and eventually with percussion, and we heard a word from new chorus baritone Justin Elzie, the first Marine discharged from the Corps under DADT, in 1993. Augmenting the choristers' a cappella "America the Beautiful," by Samuel A. Ward, was a slide show of images concerning Marriage Equality, homophobia, hate crimes-the martyred Matthew Shepard, and DADT, and Michael Gore's "Here's Where I Stand," from "Camp," with soloist Herminio Delgado, made for a proud statement of gay identity.

Further demonstrations of pride came in an "I Am, I Will Medley," with Angelo Cilia singing Jerry Herman's "I Am What I Am," from the musical "La Cage aux Folles," followed by a sing-along of the disco version; "Big Gay Idol" winner Rein's "Maybe This Time," eventually a sing-along with her and the chorus; and Anka, François and Revaux's "My Way," with soloist TJ Witham, also a sing-along.

A tribute to Cher closed "Big Gay Sing 2," with sing-alongs of "(Do you) Believe (in love after love after love)," "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves," "I Got You Babe," and "The Shoop Shoop Song" ("It's in his kiss"), and finally, the chorus members, in sailor caps, singing "If I Could Turn Back Time" to Howard Vaiselberg and eight other Chers!

For further information about the June 30 concert, log on to www.nycgmc.org. The Skirball Center is located at 588 LaGuardia Place at Washington Square South.