An Evening with Megan Mullally - Feb 22nd

The moment Megan Mullally stepped foot on Sydney Wharf Theatre's stage last night she appeared to have her audience on side.  She was met with a rapturous lengthy applause and genuinely looked excited and humbled. 'I'm moving here!!' she remarked once or twice throughout the show. Joined by Seth Rudetsky on piano, she opened with Sondheim's 'Broadway Baby' from the musical 'Follies'.  This again resulted with thunderous applause and the general feeling was that no matter what she did - this audience was going to adore her - and deservedly so.

The tone of the evening was set early on and consisted of some Broadway songs (notably three from Sondheim's 'Follies'), and a couple of blues/middle of the road numbers.  In between the songs Rudetsky and Mullally reclined in armchairs and chatted.  Having been friends for years (they met whilst working on 1995's 'How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying') the conversation flowed easily and gave opportunity for Mullally to shine whilst re telling stories from her career.  Whist it was informal is style, it was also structured and felt tight overall.  As a fan, I felt they covered pretty much everything; her early attempts at ballet, her roles on Broadway (featuring a great story or two about Rosie O'Donnell during the 'Grease' run), her marriage to Park and Recreation's Nick Offerman, and of course her successful role as Karen Walker in Will & Grace.

Invited guests Stephanie Hunt (the other half of her musical duo Nancy and Beth) and Broadway singer Paul Castree sang during a couple of songs and provided some nice moments.

       
                                                   With musician Stephanie Hunt
                 
As one of the few who actually enjoys 'Young Frankenstein', I felt it was a shame she never included any of these songs in her set. A very slight niggle however, and her story about Elaine Stritch on opening night more than sated my appetite.

The set concluded with a song from 'Karen: The Musical'.  This musical will likely not ever see the light of day due to some legal issues over release of the character but it was fabulous to see her so easily slip back into the role which made her world famous.

Mullally graciously performed an encore of two songs, which included included 'Long John Blues' - another personal highlight for me.

A night I will remember for a long time!