We asked Warren to fill us in on his involvement with Night Of 1,000 Heels and he told us that his collaboration with the original High Heeled Women, Cassandra Danz and Mary Fulham, was his very first theatrical writing job. I enjoyed the show. It was strange to see material I had seen performed a thousand times performed by all new performers. But the jokes survived and the lyrics and shtick did too.
Truth is, the new cast out sings the old cast by a few miles.
Out dances them too. One of the greatest pleasures for a theater critic is to go to an unknown play by an unknown playwright and to hear the ring of that little alarm bell that alerts you that you've lucked into a good play. The best illustration of such a pleasurable experience this season is Warren Leight's wonderfully moving and authentic memory play, Side Man. Much of its authenticity is due to the fact that it's forged from the author's own life as the son of a musician to whose world he was drawn heart and soul despite the economic and emotional difficulties experienced by the families of displaced but desperate to survive musicians. And the especially good news is that the play will have a life beyond its all too brief run at its Off-Broadway location, Classic Stage on thirteenth street.