BWW Review: Corinna Sowers Adler Triumphs with SECOND STORIES at The Laurie Beechman Theatre
It is blissfully impressive when a nightclub starts their show on time, and it is something that happens with less and less frequency these days – but not at The Laurie Beechman Theatre, which started the Corinna Sowers Adler show SECOND STORIES promptly at 2 pm on Saturday, a perfect way to send an audience into a show, already happy. If, however, any unlucky person in the audience were unhappy before Corinna Sowers Adler hit the stage, it would have taken the affable soprano no time at all to dispel their despair. The energy Sowers Adler brought to the room as she took to the mic in simple black dress, black stockings and eye-catching rhinestone encrusted knee-high boots was deliciously contagious and only grew with the afternoon. Corinna Sowers Adler, as some already know but this writer learned, is a nightclub entertainer par excellence, and this new show (a sequel to Stories…A Cabaret) is the perfect showcase for her immense talents.
The idea behind Second Stories is a simple one: Ms. Sowers Adler presents a bit more than an hour of story songs. There is no big arc from curtain up to curtain down, but many little arcs throughout the show, and each of them executed in ways professional, artistic, and enjoyable. The professional factor of the equation is more important than a sometime cabaret-goer might realize. Many is the time that unprepared performers stand in the spotlight attempting to present a piece of theater for which they are unprepared, or during which they are unable to cope with the little surprises, complications, and interruptions that bubble up during a live performance. This is not the case with Corinna Sowers Adler, who is so polished and prepared that an earthquake could take place and it wouldn’t phase her.
Interestingly, when I got home from seeing Ms. Sowers Adler’s show, my spouse said to me “I saw something on TCM and dvr’d it for you to look at” so I hit play and saw a 15 minute interview with Dame Julie Andrews who, during the course of the interview, recounted that her first voice teacher told her “The amateur works until he can get it right. The professional works until he cannot go wrong.”
Corinna Sowers Adler cannot go wrong.
Read the full article by clicking HERE
Photos by Stephen Mosher