‘Everyday Rapture’ concludes Broadway season

Rev. Fred Phelps and Mr. Rogers figure in Sherie Rene Scott's bio with songs

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

BROADWAY REVIEW

Slated as the final show to bow in the 2009-2010 Broadway season (the Tony Awards cut-off date is April 29), a revival of Terrence McNally's "Lips Together, Teeth Apart" was cancelled during rehearsals when Megan Mullaly quit for variously reported reasons.

To fill the void in its subscription series, Roundabout Theatre Company invited Sherie Rene Scott to encore her bio-show "Everyday Rapture," which was an off-Broadway success at Second Stage last year.

"Sherie Rene who?" you well may ask. (After all, it's not like Roundabout is dishing up Liza or Patti to do their born-in-a-trunk business.)

Scott made her first big splash as the dressy Amneris in "Aida," then capered with John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz through "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels." Her last Broadway creation was that oh-so wicked Ursula of "The Little Mermaid." Sure, you know Scott: She's a honey blond charmer with a vibrant voice and a nifty way with comedy.

So there she is, relating her I'm-from-Topeka life in pop songs and story in the middle of the capacious stage at the American Airlines Theatre, where "Everyday Rapture" opened on Thursday.

Frankly, it's a stretch for Scott to project her beguiling brand of wide-eyed semi-innocence effectively in an expansive 750-seat house. Fortunately she gets some help and the show is an agreeable 90 minutes.

Fresh from unleashing "American Idiot," director Michael Mayer simply backs up Scott with two singers and five onstage musicians while decking the stage with acres of multicolor Christmas lights.

It's an appropriately rosy-hued environment for Scott to relate tales about her Kansas youth during the 1970s singing in the choir of Rev. Fred Phelps' soon-to-be-notorious Westboro Baptist Church all the while being entranced by old Judy Garland movies.

Humorously illustrating her teen confusion is Scott's rendition of "You Made Me Love You" complete with a "Dear Mr. Jesus" soliloquy while dreamy visions of her savior appear in rear projections. The blessed TV presence of Fred Rogers in Scott's life fortunately saved her from Pentecostal excess and eventually she made her way to New York.

The show's quirkiest bit involves Scott's confounding interaction with a teen boy she spots on YouTube doing an outrageous lip-sync version of her big "Aida" number. In a crazy cameo, Eamon Foley camps like Carmen Miranda on crack while Scott and singers Lindsay Mendez and Betsy Wolfe desperately try to keep up.

Let's not tell more, except to mention that Scott's spirits are high, her mildly balmy message is positive and her saga (co-written with Dick Scanlan) obviously is not the usual stage-struck chatter. Among a dozen songs heard along the way, a few warm, whimsical Mr. Rogers ditties and a smoking "Ladder to the Roof" are especially fine.

"Everyday Rapture" continues through July 11 at American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., New York. Call (212) 719-1300 or visit www.roundabouttheatre.org.