Audra McDonald took an adoring audience at the Paramount Hudson Valley Theater on a journey through the Great American Songbook that touched on some of her most celebrated performances.
The April 18 show at the Peekskill theater was a hometown gig for the Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award-winning soprano, who joked that “it only took me eight minutes to drive here” from her home in Cortlandt Manor.
Spare piano accompaniment by her longtime music director Andy Einhorn showcased the range and power of McDonald’s voice on some of her favorite standards. It also accentuated an intimate feel in the packed theater, which holds some 1,000 seats.
From her opener, “I Am What I Am” from La Cage Aux Folles, to “Stars and the Moon” from Songs for a New World and later “Pure Imagination” from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, were introduced with backstories about how each song became part of her repertoire.
The audience cheered each number with rapturous applause, especially when McDonald, now 55, performed “Cornet Man” from the Broadway version of Funny Girl — with its decidedly adult lyrics — which won her first prize as a soloist at the age of 14.
She clearly enjoyed “singing for my neighbors,” at one point leading a singalong during “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady. “This is not a shy crowd,” she said. “This is not a shy town.”
Although McDonald said her recitals rarely include songs from her Broadway performances, the evening’s showstoppers were drawn from some of her best-known roles: “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess, “Some People” from Gypsy and especially “Crazy He Calls Me” from Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, during which she moved smoothly between verses from Billie Holiday’s voice to her own.
Songs by Sondheim and Loesser were joined in the 75-minute program by Kermit the Frog’s It’s Not Easy Being Green by Joe Raposo, as well as a tribute to lyric soprano Barbara Cook.
McDonald received a standing ovation for a stirring version of “Cabaret,” a song she had been urged to perform by Anna Wintour in 2021 at The Met in celebration of Broadway’s reopening during COVID.
She and Einhorn traded vocals on the encore, which McDonald called a “testament to demanding radical joy”: A mashup of “Happy Days Are Here Again” and “Get Happy.”
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