Dean Regan
“Give My Regards to Broadway”
The persona that Dean Regan employed in his Metropolitan Room show was that of a stage-struck teenage kid—one who has somehow assumed the body of a mature man but who remains enchanted by The Miracle That Is Broadway. When actor-singer Regan looks at Times Square, he doesn’t “see the grit or the grime—or the pedestrian mall,” he told us. He sees only the glamour. Certainly any performer who’s been in the business-of-show for at least a couple of decades has encountered a fair share of unsavory grime scenes. But Regan, who now lives in Los Angeles, insisted that he remains perfectly enthralled by the whole Broadway package.
Regan often performs in concert venues on large stages. If you go to his website (DeanRegan.com), you’ll see clips of him engaging in all manner of gymnastic showmanship. (There’s a somersault—a literal somersault!) Part of the trick for Regan (and director Barry Kleinbort) at the Metropolitan Room was to modify a showstopper-heavy program for an intimate venue. Regan made a good start with a relatively subdued “Old Devil Moon” (Burton Lane/E.Y. Harburg) from Finian’s Rainbow. The song set up nicely the whole notion of being in a spellbound state, and the singer approached the material with a smile that verged on a giggle—as if moonbeams were literally tickling him.
He segued into the show’s familiar title number, George M. Cohan’s “Give My Regards to Broadway,” interpolating scripted patter that introduced the evening’s New York-theatre theme. Prominent in musical director Nick Fryman’s arrangement was a heavy bass/piano line that recalled John Kander’s vamp for “Roxie” from Chicago. It overwhelmed Regan’s voice a bit—at least from my vantage point near the drums.
A simply rendered “Dreamers,” from Marvin Hamlisch and Christopher Alder’s Jean Seberg (a show that never actually reached Broadway), set the stage for Regan’s description of the high-school field trip that first brought him to The Street. He and his classmates saw many shows, including Stephen Schwartz’s Pippin. Regan’s rendition of that show’s opening number (“Magic to Do”), complete with Bob Fosse–style flourishes, ensued. On its heels came Billy Elliot’s “Electricity” (Elton John/Carol Hall) and The Rink’s “Colored Lights” (John Kander/Fred Ebb). These numbers advanced the theme of Broadway as an energizing and vividly lit place.
Frank Loesser’s “Luck Be a Lady” from Guys and Dolls allowed Regan to marshal the kind of brassy showmanship with which he clearly feels at home. He capped the number by miming a Runyonesque roll of the dice. “Music of the Night” (Andrew Lloyd Webber/Charles Hart) from Phantom of the Opera was far less successful. I couldn’t tell whether Regan was taking the point of view of the seducer or the seduced. In fact, he seemed most concerned with invoking memories of Michael Crawford’s patented creepy vocals—and with making sure he hit the big money notes.
Regan next paid tribute to a number of his Broadway heroes, including Joel Grey (“Willkommen” from Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret), Richard Kiley (a Man of La Mancha fragment from Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion), and George Rose (“I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General” from Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance). (Early in his career Regan appeared on Broadway with Rose in Pirates). There was a bit too much comic grimacing for my taste in this part of the act, especially in the Major General bit.
The singer told a sweet anecdote about an encounter in a restaurant with another of his heroes, the late Robert Preston—who cautioned Regan against paying heed to nay-saying pessimists. The story led not to a song from The Music Man, but rather to Stephen Sondheim’s “Everybody Says Don’t” (Anyone Can Whistle), which proved to be one of the evening’s musical highlights. Though Regan’s choices were likely mapped out carefully (the whisper on “Sometimes you have to start small,” for instance), the total effect was one of freshness and spontaneity. Fryman on piano, along with bassist Tom Hubbard and drummer Donna Kelly (collectively, the “Triple Crown Trio”), provided an agreeably cacophonic accompaniment toward the end. Perhaps this noisy jumble was meant to allude back to Preston and the brave but off-kilter “Think System” playing of Harold Hill’s River City band.
“Everybody” was followed by another Sondheim classic, the frantically yearning “Being Alive” from Company, a show in which Regan once played the lead role of Bobby. After the “heroes” sequence came a third Sondheim selection, the achingly melodic “Not a Day Goes By” from Merrily We Roll Along, which was sung quietly, contemplatively, and effectively.
The remainder of the program consisted of two more showstoppers. Though “This Nearly Was Mine” (Richard Rodgers/Oscar Hammerstein II) from South Pacific is a song of loss, it nevertheless afforded Regan another occasion to plug musical theatre’s brand of cockeyed optimism. Then, with “Defying Gravity” (Schwartz again, from Wicked), Regan cut loose with 11-o’clock-number abandon.
The encore, “For Good” (also from Wicked), paid homage to “Mrs. Matthews,” the drama instructor who brought Regan to New York on that high-school field trip and who first tempted him with the Broadway dream. We all should value our Mrs. Matthewses, the singer suggested. And who would disagree with that?
I wonder, though, if Regan’s Mrs. M would have felt as I did: that her former student is at his best when he allows the sunny side of The Street to be shaded—maybe even clouded a bit—by the complexities of grown-up life. It’s all well and good to go on dreaming into adulthood, to be caressed by the Old Devil Moon. But every now and then a boy’s got to wake up and sing the Sondheim.
About the Author
Mark Dundas Wood is an arts/entertainment journalist and dramaturg. He began writing reviews for BistroAwards.com in 2011. More recently he has contributed "Cabaret Setlist" articles about cabaret repertoire. Other reviews and articles have appeared in theaterscene.net and clydefitchreport.com, as well as in American Theatre and Back Stage. As a dramaturg, he has worked with New Professional Theatre and the New York Musical Theatre Festival. He is currently literary manager for Broad Horizons Theatre Company.