Music Review by Ron Fassler . . .
Having seen many solo concerts at the 92NY, I was somewhat taken aback when Heather Headley confidently strolled out to start her show Sunday afternoon with no introduction. I can’t quite explain it, but her dynamic presence and profoundly natural manner won me over before she even spoke a word or sang a note. There’s an essence about her that can’t be faked or taught. She’s got “it,” whatever “it” is. And again, this is even before that glorious voice enraptured the crowd. She responded to the prolonged ovation at the top by saying, “I feel like I should have brought cookies.” Endearing, or what?
Since winning a Best Actress in a Musical Tony Award for Elton John’s Aida, we’ve seen precious little of her on the New York stage over the past twenty years. Despite brief stints in 2016 replacing Jennifer Hudson in The Color Purple and recently playing the Witch in Into the Woods in its Encores! production (though not in its Broadway transfer) that’s been about it. This is due to her raising three children as well as having a Grammy Award-winning recording career. She keeps busy, but boy has her absence been felt in the world of the theatre. She is blessed with enormous stage presence, bountiful good humor, and a voice that’s a gift from the gods with vocal dexterity, interpretation and notes that cross into the sublime.

Her program was immeasurably aided by Jason Webb at the piano, who performed every single song sans sheet music. Deeply felt, it was a pleasure watching him play and match every gesture and intonation of Headley’s with such heart and precision. Theirs is a true partnership. Opening with Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg’s “Over the Rainbow” (not your usual opener), rainbows and rain marked a bit of a theme through the show. Her second song, also with lyrics by the great Yip Harburg, was “Look to the Rainbow” from Burton Lane’s brilliant score to Finian’s Rainbow. The way she sang the last word of the song’s last lyric, “Follow the fellow who follows a dream,” was thrilling. In the third number, “My House” from Tim Minchin’s Matilda, opens with “This roof keeps me dry when the rain falls.” Everything seemed to connect and Headley connected with the material artfully.
Other highlights included Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love” (with a first lyric of “When the rain is blowing in your face and the whole world is on your case I could offer you a warm embrace to make you feel my love”). I also particularly liked “Girl Crush,” written by Lori McKenna, Hillary Lindsey and Liz Rose, and especially her serving up as an encore a fierce rendition of “She Used to Be Mine,” the great Sara Bareilles song from Waitress. She also turned to two songs traditionally sung by men in Broadway musicals, “Maria” from West Side Story and “Bring Him Home” from Les Misérables, both superb.
Headley has an exemplary way of expressing herself in gesture that’s unique to her, yet nothing too elaborate to take away from the job at hand. She straddles that line beautifully allowing for the audience to luxuriate in her thoughts and feelings on what she is singing about. The give and take with the crowd at 92Y was a mighty good one with much cheering her on in all the right ways. She perhaps indeed should have brought cookies.

An Afternoon with Heather Headley was presented Sunday, November 4 at the 92nd Street Y’s David Geffen Stage at the Kaufmann Concert Hall, 1395 Lexington Avenue, NYC. For information on future programming visit https://www.92ny.org.
Photos by Richard Termine.