Oh, Sherie!

Photo: Carol Rosegg

Remember your blonde, manic, Tori Spelling-esque best girlfriend in high school? The one who starred in all the musicals you only made the chorus for, who was definitely going to BROADWAY! Who constantly needed to be the center of attention and saw everything through the prism of HER CRAZY LIFE, but who was so funny and sarcastic -- and, let's face it, who had such drop-dead amazing pipes -- that you were sort of sickly addicted to her?

Well, while you were stuck folding fleece activewear at Banana Republic, that girl made it to BROADWAY! in the form of Sherie Renee Scott. You know SRS, right? She's the one who's had all those Number Two roles in Broadway shows, like the evil Ursula in The Little Mermaid and the clotheshorse princess in Aida. But now she finally has her own show called Everyday Rapture -- currently off-Broadway through mid-June -- and if you thought your bestie's mesmerizing stream-of-consciousness egotism was off the grid in high school, now girlfriend is really out of control.

Simply put, Everyday Rapture is really funny and entertaining, and often quite moving, but, man, it's weird, and it only gets weirder as it goes along. You see, the Sherie whom Scott portrays here -- which reportedly is sort-of, but not wholly, based on Scott herself -- grew up in Kansas half-Mennonite ("It's Amish-light," she explains, just one of the show's endless witticisms, delivered in a perfect crazy-girl deadpan) and, all through her youth, felt torn between being meek and quiet and not drawing attention to herself, as her religion preached, and wanting to SING OUT! and command attention, as her inner heart preached.

The journey to find common ground between these two initially conflicting impulses is the operating conceit for the show. We learn that Sherie was hopelessly torn between her two idols, Jesus and Judy (Garland, duh), and both gay icons are incorporated into this show in ways that are both hilarious and sweet. Also very sweet are Scott's beautifully shaded, melancholy readings of "It's You I Like" and "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, which loomed large in her childhood. (The arrangements for this show are also gorgeous and violin-drenched, recalling those from another landmark diva-fest that Sherie clearly knows well.)

Through the show's halfway point, you are following Scott -- at least as much as you could follow your old high-school bestie after she'd amped herself up on a venti mocha latte. But then, Scott's show goes into the most deliciously, intriguingly strange territory we've seen in a long time in a fairly big-budget New York musical production. A whole segment, featuring the abundant talents of adolescent Eamon Foley, explores the fact that Sherie is the first Broadway quasi-star to go public with the fact that she became obsessed with an anonymous fan's own lip-syncing YouTube obsesssion with her. Here, Sherie bravely reveals the depths of her egotism in a funhouse-mirror routine of kabuki precision. And we didn't even mention the whole deal with her gay cousin Jerome and how his funeral is shouted down by the evil Rev. Fred Phelps and his progeny, one of which is Sherie's own friend. Or the fact that the songs here are by folks like Tom Waits, Roberta Flack and David Byrne.

Sherie, you are that crazed showtune-belting bestie we've missed so much since graduation from Dullsville High, and we're happy that you're now getting all the attention you so deeply craved -- er, deserved.

-- TIM MURPHY

Previously > Whore Works works NYC's Kraine Theatre

Comments

[Jamal Williams]

Whore Works, a theatrical masterpiece, invited us into the secret world of a hustler, played by Juan Michael Porter II, and his clients, all masterfully played by Bryan Webster. We see the hustler more as actor than whore, assuming roles and identities to fit the situation accordingly. As one might expect, the client is either fulfilling a fantasy or seeking love, but as Bryan Webster plays them, the clients are never predictable. These actors hold nothing back to make their characters live, including revealing every inch of their bodies and embracing so closely that their penises touch. Porter's sexy dancer body is appropriate for the character, and Webster proves that middle-age has a sexiness of its own, imperfections and all. Although the audience, composed largely of hot black men, left the show with bulging pants, audience members also witnessed theater that had heart, comedy, tension, and beauty.