Live from Lincoln Center: Megan Hilty (2019)

Only three Live from Lincoln Center concerts this year, so this is the last one.  Megan Hilty put on a definite crowd-pleasing show, packed with Broadway tunes and lots of treats for her fans.

Of all the Live from Lincoln Center concerts, Hilty’s by far has the most fan satisfaction in terms of featuring performances of Hilty’s well-known numbers.  Smash songs opened and (almost) closed the show – first up was “They Just Keep Moving the Line,” and near the end, she did “Don’t Forget Me” infused with a little “Let Me Be Your Star” (she also sang “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” – not a Smash song, but still on brand.)  I really appreciated the affection Hilty showed for Smash; even though the show itself had plenty of issues and was short-lived, she happily swore that she’d be singing those songs until the day she died.  Wicked made an appearance as well, a gentle rendition of “For Good” with not one, but two Elphabas, Shoshana Bean and Eden Espinosa.  All three ladies sounded really lovely harmonizing together.  And we also got a quick medley of songs from 9 to 5.

Really, though, Broadway was all over this set.  Lots of old standards, like “This Can’t Be Love” from The Boys from Syracuse and “Almost like Being in Love” from Brigadoon.  She did several numbers from Annie, Get Your Gun, including “I Got the Sun in the Morning” and a stripped-down version of “There’s No Business like Show Business.”  She beautifully sang My Fair Lady’s “I Could Have Danced All Night” to show off her classically-trained operatic soprano, a weapon I didn’t know she had in her arsenal (she prefaced that performance by telling us about her training and confessing that she rarely had the opportunity to use it, accompanied by a terrific song called “The Alto’s Lament” that examined the woes of always having to sing harmony.)  Like so many of us, she admitted her undying love for Little Shop of Horrors and sang “Suddenly Seymour” in a duet with her husband.

Only a few non-musical-theatre numbers, but the ones she did have were lovely.  She performed Don Henley’s “The Heart of the Matter,” which isn’t a Broadway song but which I associate with Broadway because Kristin Chenoweth performed it when I saw her live in concert; Hilty’s version of the song was gorgeous, really delicate and beautiful.  And her very last number was “Rainbow Connection,” her traditional closer since she was pregnant with her daughter (I loved the story she told about that, how she and her husband agreed to end every concert that way, knowing their daughter could hear Hilty singing in utero.)

For stage banter, I’d put Hilty in between Cynthia Errivo and Annaleigh Ashford.  She didn’t do a ton of talking between songs, but whenever she did, she made it count.  All in all, an excellent concert with lots of familiar songs, which always makes for a good time.  Hilty knew what the people wanted, and she delivered it in spades.