Show Palace is alive with sounds of Rodgers and Hammerstein

Musical tributes can be tough. What do you do besides, um, sing?

Turns out, in some cases at least, you can do plenty. Just look at Some Enchanted Evening, an Evening with Rodgers and Hammerstein, the songfest playing through Sept. 29 at the Show Palace Dinner Theatre in Hudson.

Besides beautiful voices, this show has accomplished dancers, gorgeous Bob Mackie showroom outfits, a classy Gatsbyesque set, comedy, romance, squealing cancan girls and two grand pianos on stage to bring it all together.

And, of course, those wonderful Rodgers and Hammerstein tunes.

The show's two acts are markedly different in tone and style, but they meld to make a marvelous evening.

Act 1 has a graceful, extravagantly costumed, Ziegfield-style tableaux of Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, with one big production number near the end to pull the audience back for more.

Act 2 is a trio of sketches cleverly linking songs from several Rodgers and Hammerstein shows into vignettes, ending with the grand finale, a whooping rendition of Oklahoma!.

The first act's romantic tone is set as a sophisticated blond, T.J. Pini, glides down the center staircase in a black sheath dress purring I Have Dreamed. From there we meet a smoldering redhead with a touch-of-torch contralto, Katie Kerwin (Hello, Young Lovers); a bold and sassy Shannon Lee Jones (I Cain't Say No); a snappy Tiffany Hale (Gentleman Is a Dope); and a winsome young Christine Perez (In My Own Little Corner).

This is a classic ensemble piece, but the second act's sketches -- a spoof of The Sound of Music's My Favorite Things bedroom scene, a sudden gender-switch routine and melancholy bistro encounters straight out of Miami's South Beach -- let each performer establish a persona.

Joseph Hale (Surrey With the Fringe on Top) is the flirtatious cad; Gregory Stockbridge (Younger Than Springtime) is the urbane crooner; baritone-bass Panayotis Petrakis, an opera singer from Greece, (You'll Never Walk Alone) is the continental charmer; and Ian Rhodes (Sixteen Going on Seventeen) is the playful kid.

Even so, director-choreographer Casey Colgan lets each performer rip it up with unexpected surprises and character twists to keep the evening hopping. Think Cary Grant in a hula skirt, and you get the drift.

REVIEW

Some Enchanted Evening, an Evening with Rodgers and Hammerstein, Show Palace Dinner Theatre, 16128 U.S. 19, Hudson, weekends through Sept. 29; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 1:30 p.m. Sept. 14, 19, 21, and 28; and 3 p.m. Sundays. Doors open two hours earlier for buffet and cash bar. Dinner and show, $37.50; show only, $26.45. Call 863-7949 in west Pasco; toll-free elsewhere 1-888-655-7469.

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