Broadway World Review by Jeffrey Ellis
While seated at TPAC’s James K. Polk Theatre Thursday night, I was struck by a sudden realization: If Matthew Weiner, the creator/executive producer/grand poobah of Mad Men, needs some inspiration, or if perhaps he needs a special musical guest for his particular period-piece of a television juggernaut, he need look no further than the four men who make up Under the Streetlamp, the singing group that is currently taking the USA by storm in their first national tour. With exceptional style and remarkable confidence, their act goes down as smoothly as a perfectly dry martini served up in the glamorous nightclub of your nostalgia-fueled dreams.
Oozing charm and brimming over with sex appeal and an overabundance of stage presence, Under the Streetlamp—the quartet (Michael Ingersoll, Michael Cunio, Shonn Wiley and Christopher Kale Jones) that somehow manages to capture the sounds of multiple generations in their polished act, one that has delighted PBS pledge drive supporters for some time now—took to the stage of the Polk Theatre for a concert of pop music standards, a tuneful blend they quite appropriately call “The American Radio Songbook.”
Clad in impeccably tailored suits, the four men look for all the world as if they have just stepped off a Mad Men soundstage, calling to mind the final scenes of the television series’ season five finale (which aired only four nights earlier). Much like Don Draper striding purposefully off a soundstage, the men of Under the Streetlamp strode onto the Polk Theatre stage, proceeding to give a performance that resulted in multiple standing ovations—a tricky, if altogether deserved, trifecta of appreciation—and the kind of respect Nashville audiences give only to the extremely talented. With smooth sophistication, an easy wit and the kind of rapport some performers can only dream about, Under the Streetlamp delivered the musical goods and then some. Continue Reading
