Live from Lincoln Center: Annaleigh Ashford (2019)

This is the first Live from Lincoln Center concert in which I wasn’t really all that familiar with the performer.  I definitely knew the name Annaleigh Ashford and I was reminded that she co-starred in the recent Sunday in the Park with George revival with Jake Gyllenhaal, but I don’t have any cast recordings that feature her and I couldn’t tell you much of anything else that she’s been in.  Hers was probably the most eclectic Live from Lincoln Center concert so far (even more than Andrew Rannells’s!), but I enjoyed it quite a bit.

For starters, Ashford spent a lot of time interacting with the audience.  She told a few very long anecdotes, she gave us a “tour of the neighborhood” via the view from the window, and she engaged the audience in “Karaoke Cabaret” with Alanis Morrisette’s “Hand in My Pocket,” with her backup dancers holding up signs to instruct the audience when to sing along, tap out percussion, or perform various actions (mime smoking a cigarette, kiss your neighbor, hold up a peace sign, etc.)  She also staked a claim on having performed the first “death drop” ever featured on PBS.  All of this admittedly cut into her singing time (I’d say she did the least songs of any Lincoln Center concert so far,) but I still liked it, as the stories, bits, and asides told me a lot about who she is as an entertainer.  On the whole, she was very winning, and she kept me engaged.

As for the songs themselves, they were all over the place.  She opened with “One Night Only” from Dreamgirls, which led into a New-York-in-the-Studio-54-era-‘70s medly that heavily featured Donna Summer songs.  That was immediately followed by a pair of Mr. Rogers songs, at which point I stopped trying to figure out what Ashford was about musically.  “Children Will Listen” from Into the Woods made the cut, along with a nice performance of “Come Rain or Come Shine” following a tribute to her late Judy-Garland-obsessed voice teacher.  There was the aforementioned Alanis Morrisette song and a duet from Sunday with Jake Gyllenhaal (“Move On,” of course – I know it’s an incredible song, but honestly, just once I’d kill to hear a pair do “We Do Not Belong Together.)  There was a medley put together more thematically than stylistically, pairing “Another Hundred People” from Company with Elton John’s “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” as both being songs about New York City; really enjoyed that one.

I won’t claim that it all fit together, but despite that, it still worked.  Being pretty unfamiliar with Ashford’s voice, I thought she sounded great throughout, from the pop to the Broadway and back, and the whirlwind variety of song choices suited the quirky humor and playfulness she brought to the evening.  Certainly not one I’ll forget anytime soon!