An Evening with Ana Gasteyer

L. and I just got home from Wharton Center, where we saw the multi-talented Ana Gasteyer perform, along with her excellent jazz combo, a selection of Holiday songs. They were mainly Christmas songs of the secular variety, as Ana pointed out--with one Hanukkah song in the mix. 

The show was much more than just music, because Ana Gasteyer is hilarious. She has a long career on stage, film, and television. She was a cast member of Saturday Night Live and has starred in television shows such as Suburgatory, The Goldbergs, and American Auto to name just a few. Go to her IMDb page or Wikipedia to see everything she's done. She acts, she does comedy, and she has an incredible singing voice.

In this evening's show, she riffed on subjects ranging from making Christmas cards, Black Friday frenzy, post-election self-care purchases, wanting to get her song "Sugar & Booze" in a commercial--preferably a pharmaceutical commercial, and that led into a hilarious detour into the pleasant fantasy worlds created by drug commercials, and then the myriad side effects of these drugs. In between the funny banter, she blew the roof off the joint with her singing.

The performance was topped off by the song "Defying Gravity" from the musical Wicked (oh yeah, did I mention she originated the role of Elpheba in the 2005 Chicago production?) and a rousing version of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" that would have made Thurl Ravenscroft proud. 

So, it was a wonderfully entertaining evening, and now I should get ready for bed.


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