Broadway’s Mimi Bessette performed her one night only Christmas with Mimi to a sold out crowd at the legendary Metropolitan Room on Monday December 17, 2012 at 9:30 PM. The Metropolitan Room is located at 34 West 22 Street in New York City.
The Metropolitan Room, which was voted the #1 Jazz Cabaret Club by New York Magazine, is one of the most critically acclaimed venues for performers and broadways brightest stars to perform in. So, it’s fitting that Mimi Bessette would perform her Christmas with Mimi show there. The space, which seats a maximum of 115 people, has both table seating and numerous booths throughout. The Metropolitan Room creates an intimate environment and experience, perfectly fitting for the show that Bessette is about to perform. The lights are dim, the drinks are flowing, and the spirit of Christmas is in the air. Christmas with Mimi, which starred Mimi Bessette, was last seen on Broadway as Emma Parker in Frank Wildhorn’s Bonnie & Clyde: A New Musical, which received a TONY Award nomination for Best Score. The musical also starred Laura Osnes as Bonnie Parker and Jeremy Jordan as Clyde Barrow.
Christmas has been a reoccurring theme in Bessette’s life. A Ridgefield, Connecticut native, who was in a Broadway workshop production of A Christmas Story starring Beau Bridges, not to be confused with the current A Christmas Story playing at The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, which is a different version of the show Bessette and Bridges were attached too. Bessette, who not only originated the role of Emma Parker in Bonnie & Clyde: A New Musical on Broadway, also originated the same role in the regional production at The Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida in 2010 before it transferred to Broadway on December 1, 2011. Despite positive audience reception, the show failed to impress New York critics and closed after playing 4 weeks on Broadway at The Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.
My favorite song of the evening was also a showstopper in part of the presentation in which Bessette sang and performed the material. “The Life of the Party” from John Kander and Fred Ebb’s 1968 Broadway musical The Happy Time, which starred Robert Goulet, who would go on to win the TONY Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. Bessette seduces her audience with the toss of her hair, the sway of her hips, and the clear ping pitch of her voice which could be heard from miles away. The song was not only entertaining and very pleasing to the ear, but it was a pleasure to see Bessette enjoy herself so much as she enticed her audience moment to moment through song.
Another moment of the evening I rather enjoyed was Bessette’s rendition of “Hard Candy Christmas” written by Carol Hall from the Broadway musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Bessette told her story of how she was Angel in the first national tour and would later move into the Broadway production as Dawn. Bessette, with microphone in hand as a spotlight lit her face, sang a beautiful and heart wrenching version of the song made popular to most by Dolly Parton, who also starred in the film adaptation. Verse after verse, Bessette builds in emotional intensity and the color tone of her voice leaves you with goose bumps. I have seen many covers of this song in my life time and I am finally happy to say that this was the best version I have ever heard anyone perform. Moment to moment, Mimi sang, and you could not only see, but you could hear the hurt in her heart. It was no surprise that she was promoted to the Broadway production from the first national tour. Interestingly enough, Bessette was also in national touring productions of Parade, Big River, and Keep on the Sunny Side.
Bessette then went on to perform holiday classics such as “Jingle Bells“ and the most entertaining version I have ever heard of “Boogie Woogie Santa Claus” written by Leon Rene, in which she brought numerous producers (Douglas Denoff, Dale Badway, Ken Mahoney, and Michael Alden) of Bonnie & Clyde, The Best Man, The Gershwins’ Porgy & Bess, and Nice Work If You Can Get It on stage with her. The audience sang along with Bessette as she and her four producing partners danced and sang. How smart, charming, and utterly enticing Bessette had become throughout the evening, and it was more evident now than ever. She then went onto sing an original song called “Catering Christmas” written by Garry Novikoff. When not gracing the stages of Broadway with her presence, Mimi works, as she has for years, as a caterer. Singing the backing vocals for the hilarious “Catering Christmas” were Leonard Sullivan & Corinna Sowers-Adler. Mimi, along with her backing vocalists, enthusiastically wore black bow ties and black suit jackets. She then went on to sing Christmas classics, “Joy to the World” and “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.” While performing “There’s Still My Joy”, Mimi dedicated the song to the memory of those who don’t have the blessing of spending the holidays with their loved ones, in particular, The Gold Star Mothers, whom she has performed for at Arlington Cemetery in Washington, DC.
As Bessette approached the end of her show she gave us the most delightful Christmas present any of us celebrating Christmas this evening could ask for, an encore! Remember that Broadway musical that echoed “This World Will Remember Us?” Frank Wildhorn, who is known for writing beautiful music that pulls at your heart strings, wrote a song for the character Emma Parker called “The Devil,” which was unfortunately cut from the Broadway production, although Bessette was fortunate enough to perform it in the Asolo Repertory Theatre production. Just when I thought I couldn’t enjoy myself anymore then I already had, Mimi pulled out this stocking stuffer!
“The Devil” comes towards the end of the musical when Emma Parker (Mimi Bessette) is given an ultimatum. The Sheriff in town tells her she either is to plead and convince her daughter Bonnie Parker to leave Clyde Barrow and return to her humble upbringing or risk being shot and killed at the hands of the law. Emma meets one last time with her daughter Bonnie in the forest and pleads for her to come home and to leave Clyde, but Bonnie refuses. As Bonnie and Clyde drive off, which will be their last hours alive together before they are both completely mutilated, Emma Parker is left all alone, to grieve the loss of her daughter. Bessette then starts to sing. Listening to Mimi sing this song, I couldn’t help but wonder why it was cut. The song was very different from that of a typical Wildhorn melody, yet very haunting.
Mimi Bessette’s album Lullabies of Broadway, which received a Parent's Choice Award Seal of Approval and a nominee for Best Children’s Album by the New York Music Awards, is now available on CDBaby.com, iTunes and also available to order on mimibessette.com. Original Cast Recordings include: Bonnie & Clyde: A New Musical on Broadway, Woody Guthrie's American Song, Keep On The Sunny Side, and the hymn “In The Garden”, which was featured as the theme song in the Independent Film: Twilight's Last Gleaming.
