Opening her show It’s Today with the Jerry Herman song from Mame of the same title, cabaret singer Laura Jean Fumia turned Don’t Tell Mama’s back room into her own personal living room as she sang a set filled with songs from the Golden Age of musical theater, a few well-chosen standards and several interesting contemporary numbers. Her living room came with an amazing band of seasoned New York musicians: pianist David Gaines, bassist Steve LaSpina and the versatile percussionist/drummer Rex Benincasa. With her husky voice and a mane of blonde hair, Ms. Fumia’s personality reminded me of the kind of girl everyone wanted to hang out with in high school: wisecracking, funny, a bit of a hell-raiser but with a heart of gold. Her musical choices and interpretations reflected many of those characteristics as she encouraged us through song and story to stay in today and live life fully.
Ms. Fumia possesses an old-fashioned smooth, slightly smoky voice reminiscent of the big band singers of the 1940’s and 1950’s, in particular June Christy and Anita O’Day. The great Sinatra favorite “Teach Me Tonight” (Sammy Cahn/Gene de Paul) was perfectly sung, each moment unfolding into the next. Other standards that fit her like a glove included a bluesy “Come Rain or Come Shine” (Johnny Mercer/Harold Arlen), “When the Sun Comes Out” (Ted Koehler/Harold Arlen), sung with desperate fervor and featuring the wicked bass playing of Mr. LaSpina, and “Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love” from Gentleman Prefer Blondes in which Ms. Fumia, with a twinkle in her eye, made personal connections to fun lyrics like "I can't play tennis/My golf's a menace/I just can't do the Australian crawl/And I'm no better at volleyball/Ain't there anyone here for love, sweet love."
Standing still and in a whisper of a voice, Ms. Fumia took us into the mind of a woman in an obsessive high risk relationship that is out of control with “Dangerous Game” from Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse’s Jekyll & Hyde. That stillness and an aching vulnerability was also part of her deeply connected storytelling of a painful breakup in “Tell Me on a Sunday” (Andrew Lloyd Webber/Don Black), supported by Mr. Gaines’ poignantly simple piano playing. Speaking about losing her father when she was twenty years old and the fact that he never got to hear her sing, except for her Catholic school girl gigs, Ms. Fumia sang “When October Goes”, a ballad written by Barry Manilow from some incomplete lyrics by the great Johnny Mercer. As she sang "I should be over it now I know" there was a collective recognition in the audience that some losses stay with us forever. A nice contrast to her superb and moving ballads was the comically wry song “Movie of My Life” by Susan Werner.
Musical director David Brunetti shaped the evening beautifully, allowing songs to organically link up with Ms. Fumia’s stories about growing up, life as a mature woman and escapades with her friend Joey. Before closing the evening with a reprise of “It’s Today”, Ms. Fumia sang the song “I Lived” (Ryan Tedder/Noel Zancanella) recorded by the pop rock band OneRepublic, reminding us to “seize the day” and live each moment of our precious lives.
