Review
Dramaworks' pros shine in stylish 'Sondheim'
...the stylish show on view this summer at Palm Beach Dramaworks is notable for its simplicity, its accessibility and its entertainment quotient. Insightfully performed by a trio of singer-actors accompanied and occasionally joined by pianist-musical director Craig D. Ames, Side by Side is a crash course in the genius of Sondheim. The well-oiled and polished evening is staged efficiently by J. Barry Lewis... His three-member cast is led by Broadway veteran Anna McNeely (Cats), a redheaded Kewpie equally at home belting an dramatic plaint such as The Ladies Who Lunch or the overtly comic You Gotta Get a Gimmick, accompanying herself on sour trumpet. Terrell Hardcastle ably handles some of the show's prettiest ballads (I Remember, Anyone Can Whistle), but is not above gender-bending camp on the Andrews Sisters-ish trio, You Could Drive a Person Crazy. Versatile soprano Cecilia Torres...is well showcased on West Side Story's I Have a Love. And Ames injects himself more than usual into the show with a jaunty rendition of the vaudevillian patter song Buddy's Blues, complete with a final piano accent by his foot.