Audiences will be transported to the 1930s and ’40s through familiar tunes such as ‘As Time Goes By,’ ‘Ain’t Misbehavin” and ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’ in the Meadow Brook Theatre production of ‘The All Night Strut!’
The show runs through May 20 at Meadow Brook Theater in Rochester Hills.
There are four performers – ‘two African-American and two Caucasian,’ says Jeremy Benton, a tenor from New York City. ‘Some arrangements are more jazz, a Fats Waller, ‘Ain’t Misbehavin,’ Cotton Club feel. Some are straightforward popular music of the time. Every person sings all these arrangements together. It’s a melting pot, a blend of styles and cultures. It makes a statement, but it also is in a way colorblind. We’re all celebrating American music.’
Benton calls himself ‘a song and dance guy.’
‘I bring the Fred Astaire/Gene Kelly/Ray Bolger energy to the show,’ he says. ‘We all bring our own flavor and style. Gabrielle (Lee) brings the Lena Horne/Dorothy Dandridge (style). I get a chance to sing ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,’ one of my favorite songs. There are a lot of up-tempo songs. Sometimes we’re even imitating instruments in a band.’
The mood changes through the musical. Lee, an alto, sings ‘Minnie the Moocher,’ a song made famous by Cab Calloway.
‘It’s a place where sad stories are told. ‘Minnie the Moocher’ tells a story – the world of music that was going on during World War II. You could be smiling and laughing, and then it goes into the ‘The White Cliffs of Dover,’ something totally different.’
Also performing are soprano Larissa Klinger and baritone Christopher George Patterson. The director is Meadow Brook’s Travis W. Walter.
Growing up in Nashville, Benton says he ‘thought I invented tap dancing.’
‘My grandmother worked as a clothing buyer for a retail store and she was a singer, too,’ he says. ‘She would travel to New York, and she loved the American songbook. She sat me down in front of ‘Singin in the Rain,’ and I saw Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor, and I wanted those tap shoes.’
Benton started with the Nashville Ballet Company – training first in ballet and then learning tap. He moved to New York City the weekend before the Sept. 11 tragedy to audition on a callback for ’42nd Street’ and landed a part in the national tour. He was an understudy for the part of Billy Lawlor and ended up playing the part when the actor broke his ankle, he said.
He recently performed the Gene Kelly role in ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ at the Wick Theatre in Boca Raton, Fla. He spent the winter touring the country playing Phil Davis (Danny Kaye) in the national tour of Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas.’ Before that he played Bob Hope in the Los Angeles premiere of ‘Cagney the Musical,’ for which he received an Astaire Award nomination for his Off-Broadway performance of the same role. He also played Ray Bolger in the New York workshop of the new play ‘Merman.’
Also a native of Nashville, Lee said this show and ‘Ain’t Misbehavin” have ‘the tightest harmonies.’
‘You know if you can conquer learning harmonies in this show, you can do anything,’ she says.
Lee has been performing since she was grade school. Her mother was a singer in church, her grandmother played pipe organ and piano at her church and also sang. Her aunt is a professional opera singer.
‘It was in the blood – I remember as a little girl in my dreams, I’d see myself on stage as an adult. I always knew I was going to be a performer. The hard part was not knowing how it was going to happen.’
Lee has had a number of leading roles in musicals such as ‘Dreamgirls,’ ‘Smokey Joe’s Cafe,’ ‘Showboat,’ ‘Man of La Mancha,’ ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ and the ‘Angels the Musical.’ She’s also appeared in a number of TV shows, including ‘Madam Secretary,’ ‘The Good Wife’ and ‘Law & Order.’ Lee has performed as a backing vocalist with Natalie Cole, Steely Dan, Michael Bolton, Harry Belafonte – and with the New York Pops, Cab Calloway Orchestras and Ray Charles Orchestras. She’s also performed with Alvin Ailey’s ‘Revelations’ for many years.
* If you go: ‘All Night Strut!’ runs through May 20 at Meadow Brook Theatre, 2200 N. Squirrel Road, Rochester Hills. Tickets are $28-$43 at the box office, 248-377-3300 or ticketmaster.com. Student discounts are available at the box office. For groups of eight or more, call 248-370-3316 for group pricing.
