Stars and the Moon – Songs for a New World

I hadn’t heard anything about this concert until I got a tip from a visitor to this site (thanks Monique!), and luckily was able to go on short notice! It turned out Karen and Gill were also going, so since it was general admission, we all got to sit together. And right behind us was Regan Thiel, who is one of the sweetest and most talented people on the planet, so that was fun in itself!

Anyway, it turned out to be totally worth the last-minute planning. The set-up was very simple, just the four performers on stage in front of a mic, with a three-part band backing them up. The show was put together as a benefit for the Toronto General Hospital, and it seemed the audience was comprised almost entirely of people from the theatre community, including tons of students, which made for a really enthusiastic and appreciative crowd. And there was lots of be enthusiastic about!

Every single one of the performers is wonderfully talented. I was especially excited to see Thom Allison, having just seen him in Take Me Out a couple of weeks earlier, which reminded me what a great actor he is. He has such a fantastic voice, and his versions of “Steam Train”, “King of the World” and “Flying Home” were definite highlights for me. I had seen Sharron Matthews many times in Les Mis, so it was nice to see her do something else. Her comic abilities were put to great effect in “Just One Step” and “Surabaya Santa” (the show-stopper of the night), but she also did a sweetly beautiful “Stars and the Moon”. Jason Knight and Tracy Michailidis were also both excellent, and when the four of them blended together, it was absolutely exquisite.

It was also fantastic to just finally hear these songs performed live. Jason Robert Brown has such a gift of immediately creating a character in his songs – even though there are no real characters or plot here, you feel that each one could come from a complete show about that person, they are so developed within the song. I really can’t wait to hear more from him!