‘Ella Fitzgerald: First Lady of Song’

Crossroads Theatre Company presents this show about the legendary jazz singer, starring Freda Payne.

By: Stuart Duncan
   There’s a new style of musical out there these days. It begins with a legend (which probably means deceased) with enough hits to support an evening of, say, two hours plus. That means roughly 30 tunes, give or take a reprise. Now you set the songs in some sort of order (chronological is the most popular), fill in with some biographical stuff (marriages, heartaches, triumphs, losses) and anything that might add either to an audience’s enjoyment or, even better, understanding of the legend.
   Once you have a "more-or-less" script to accompany the songs, all you need now is someone talented enough to portray the legend, without diminishing the memories. It worked well for a Patsy Cline show a few years back and it is working nicely at Crossroads Theatre Company in New Brunswick right now. The evening is titled Ella Fitzgerald: First Lady of Song, and the singer who plays the legend is the most talented Freda Payne.
   We follow Fitzgerald’s life, picking it up the evening in 1934 when she won the Amateur Night contest at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and winding up with her final concert at Carnegie Hall in 1991. Along the way we brush up against jazz greats such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Nat King Cole, and we meet a few of the people who touched her life more intimately.
   It takes the show (directed by Maurice Hines, but clearly owing much to musical arranger and director Frank Owens) a while to get started. Lee Summers’ script is messy, helped tremendously by film projections that announce time and place and the songs themselves — 30 of them — running from "The Object of My Affection" (way back in 1934) right up to "Mack The Knife" six decades later. All of Ella’s big hits are here: "A Tisket, A Tasket," "Sweet Georgia Brown," "How High the Moon." For much of the first act, Ms. Payne, as Ella, exchanges dialogue with her cousin and personal dresser, Georgiana, played beautifully by Tina Fabrique. Ms. Payne, in truth, doesn’t seem terribly interested in the script and manages to forget it more than once.
   But by Act II, the script is mostly shoved to one side and the singing takes over. The audience responds eagerly, and by the time we reach "The Lady is a Tramp" (Rogers and Hart) and "The Man I Love" (George and Ira Gershwin), the audience is applauding as they hear the first bars of each tune and recognize it. As Ms. Payne finishes with "It Don’t Mean A Thing," the Duke Ellington number that kicked the show off two hours plus earlier, the audience is on its feet, roaring its approval.
   See how easy a musical hit is these days!
Ella Fitzgerald: First Lady of Song continues at Crossroads Theatre Company, 7 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, through Dec. 19. Performances: Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 3, 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. Tickets cost $30-$45; students $15. For information, call (732) 545-8100. On the Web: www.crossroads.com