Manoel Felciano

Last night at Ars Nova, Manoel Felciano, currently playing Tobias in the new Production of Sweeney Todd, presented a night of music and musings.
He speaks 5 languages, graduated with a masters from Yale, plays 20 instruments, sings, writes sonnets, writes music, and his father is a professor of music at Berkeley. Nice credentials.
He is charming and childlike. He has a lovely voice and an unfocused enthusiasm that is fun to watch. His choice of material was all over the place. An obscure piece from his musical directors show, a couple tunes that he wrote in college, a Maria Carey tune???, a Steely Dan song. None of it made sense, but it worked because so eclectic and never stayed in one style long enough to become boring. Even Steven Sondheim, who was sitting next to me across the aisle, tapped his toes and danced in his seat, totally enthralled by this very very unique young man.
Michael Cerveris joined him on stage for a number. The sound was off so the song sounded muddy. Eden Espinoza, hmmm, I just don't get her appeal. She's a phony with a screaming crazy voice that never sounds good.
A bunch of college friends joined him one by one on stage. The highlight of this part was the 3 guys who he sang a capella with in college. Sweet trip down memory lane.
Melissa Errico sang 2 wonderful Randy Newman songs with him, and then joined the audience taking a seat right behind us. It gave us a chance to chat with her about her new album coming out in June, and her new baby, and her upcoming show at Joe's pub next week. She is lovely as ever.
John McDaniel was there, as were a couple other Sweeney cast members including Alex Geminiani, who played a terrific little trumpet interlude during the show.
What a terrific $15. Great show, cool celebrities, tiny theater.
Big week coming up. More to blog later.