"I'll be doing mostly standards and musical theatre songs, which is fairly new for me — most of my previous cabaret experiences have involved singing original music by new composers and lyricists," Coady (the former Amy Schmidt) told Playbill On-Line. "There's something fulfilling about revisiting songs that have gone through my head for years. I've enjoyed analyzing the lyrics and giving new, specific meanings to each song. It amazes me how one great song with a strong lyric can have a different effect on each person who hears it. It's so fabulous when, after all the homework is done, you hear an audience member say, 'I never really liked or understood that song — until you sang it.' I think that's one reaction many singers privately hope for."
Expect songs by Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, Burton Lane, Michel Legrand, Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, Kurt Weill and more.
Coady is also lyricist and co-librettist for a dawning musical, Too Good to be True, about a famous art forger, written with composer and co-librettist Gerald Stockstill, who serves as Coady's pianist and musical director for the cabaret show.
Lennie Watts directs Part Sun/Part Shade. Performances play 7 PM Thursdays Oct. 30, Nov. 6 and 13, and 4 PM Nov. 16 at Mama Rose's, 219 Second Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets. Admission is $12 cover ($10 for MAC members) plus two drink minimum. For reservations or information, call (212) 533-0558 or visit www.amycoady.com.
* In fall 1999, Amy Coady (then Amy Schmidt) sang the work of emerging musical theatre writers in Something Else, an evening of new songs written by members of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.
Lennie Watts also directed, at Judy's in Chelsea. The venue has since closed.
Coady and composer Stockstill are alumni of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, the nonprofit crucible of craft where Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx, Alan Menken, Stephen Flaherty, Carol Hall, Lynn Ahrens, Richard Engquist, Skip Kennon, Maury Yeston and countless others have honed their theatrical songwriting skills over the years.
Schmidt was also seen and heard as a singer-lyricist at Don't Tell Mama in I Can't Sleep Now and We're Not in Kansas Anymore, both with collaborator C. Lynne Shankel. Her lyrics have been heard in Miss Coco Peru's Liquid Universe at the Westbeth Theatre and in MAC Award nominee Watts' show, Standing Outside the Fire.