Here's a great show you can't go see. Last evening, Carolyn and I went with our friends Gordon and Donna to see the final performance of Smokey Joe's Cafe at the Pasadena Playhouse. Smokey Joe's is a plotless revue cobbled up from the works of songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who between the years of 1952 and around '72 had way more than their share of hits. It's the kind of show where you sit there and say over and over, "I didn't know they wrote that!"
I'd heard this was a good production but I wasn't prepared for how good. The performances were electric…and if you don't want to take my word for it, try this: At the end, an older gentleman in the audience was brought up on stage and he said it was the best production of this show he'd ever seen. And he's seen a few because he was Mike Stoller.
Here's the cast list: LaVance Colley, Kyra Little DaCosta, Thomas Hobson, Stu James, Adrianna Rose Lyons, Monique L. Midgette, Robert Neary, Michael A. Shepperd and Carly Thomas Smith. I'm putting all their names here because (a) every one of them was terrific and (b) I'm hoping when they Google their names some day, they'll find their way to this review. The same for director/choreographer Jeffrey Polk and Musical Director Abdul Hamid Royal.
What's great about this show and this music is the way it connects with its target audience. I'd guess 90% of those present were between 50 and 70. Some of the songs were new to most of us — not everything Leiber and Stoller wrote made the Top Ten — but it all blended into a seamless whole, creating 2+ hours of one rousing tune after another. The non-famous tunes did not sound like oldies…and the oldies only sounded like oldies because they reminded you of who and where you were when you first heard them. I can't single out any of the performers — everyone had at least one killer solo and some had several — but these tunes couldn't have been in better hands. Or throats or wherever.
I'm sorry we didn't go see this earlier in the run so I could send some of you scurrying for tickets. Like I said, it was the last performance. Maybe someone will have the good sense to bring it back…to the Pasadena or elsewhere. Then if you're anywhere near where it's playing, you can go see why my friends and I had such a good time.