Leigh Cara Hussman has a strict rule: No Christmas music until the day after thanksgiving!
The singer/dancer from Visalia has been singing “It’s Beginning silver jewelry to Look A Lot Like Christmas” and other Yuletide favorites for two weeks, though, and loving every minute of it.
Hussman is part of the four-person act that debuts “Christmas My Way: A Sinatra Holiday Bash!” on Friday at Sierra Repertory Theatre’s Fallon House Theatre in Columbia. The show of more than 40 Frank Sinatra standards and holiday tunes runs through Dec. 20.
“I’ve been feeling very Christmassy since the end of October as a result tiffany cufflinks of being here,” Hussman said. “I’m having a blast.”
She’s not alone.
“Last year at this time, I was rehearsing Ebenezer Scrooge, so this is more fun,” Michael Vodde said.
The pair, along with Katherine McLaughlin and Eric Weaver re-create a Las Vegas-style lounge act reminiscent of those performed by Sinatra and his famous Rat Pack.
“It’s not about impersonating Frank or the Rat Pack,” Hussman said. “It’s capturing the fun-loving spirit they had, the way they’d go back and forth, rib each other with a drink in their hand. We’re capturing the same kind of showroom spirit of those performers.”
They’re doing it with their repartee but also with the music, which includes Sinatra hits “Let’s Fly Away,” “Chicago” and “Witchcraft,” along with holiday favorites “Winter Wonderland,” “Silver Bells” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
The opportunity to belt out those songs makes the show special, Hussman and Vodde said.
“I was born 40 years too late,” said Vodde, who declined to give his age other than old enough to tiffany money clips be the uncle of the 24-year-old Hussman. “Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter: Their music is sort of universal. All generations love that material. It’s great to get to sing it with a band in front of an audience instead of in the shower.”
Of the numbers he’s assigned, his favorite has become “That’s Life,” a surprise to him, because the song was part of the Frank Sinatra tribute show he did for SRT a few years ago, and he considered it “a cheesy ’70s song.”
“I wasn’t listening to the lyrics,” Vodde said. “I started paying attention, and it’s a real anthem for lifting oneself up and going on when you’re in trouble. I love telling that story every night. I know everyone in the audience has had his own challenges in some way. If I relate to them, it becomes a deeply felt, meaningful song for me.”
Hussman, who was introduced to Sinatra when she was 18 when a cousin gave her a record of his, is hard-pressed to name her favorite in the show.
“If I had to choose one, I’d say ‘Night and Day’ or ‘I Get a Kick Out of You,’ ” Hussman said. ” ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’ is the most fun in the show. It’s getting toward the end of show, and it introduces the guys in the band.”
A three-person combo of piano, bass and drums is on stage with the four singers/dancers, and the musicians are very much a part of the banter that sets the scene and reveals character.
The fast-paced show presents its challenges, said Vodde, who is doing his fifth SRT show since first performing in Sonora in “State Fair.”
“It’s an interesting thing, a mix between old standards and very contemporary Manhattan Transfer four-part tiffany pendants harmonies that the Rat Pack never did,” Vodde said. “We’re singing difficult material, and we break into dance and sing solo. That’s a challenge.”
Hussman, who just finished “No Sex Please, We’re British” for SRT, said the timing of the cast banter is the biggest challenge for her, never having done vaudevillian style comedy.
“Luckily, the cast is fantastic,” she said. “We all just hit it off and have great chemistry.”
The Rat Pack’s came from years of friendship. The SRT cast’s came from having dinner together the night before rehearsals began.
Those rehearsals have bonded them, though, and even if the calendar says it’s not Thanksgiving yet, they’re ready to ring in the holidays.
Contact reporter Lori Gilbert at (209) 546-8284 or lgilbert@recordnet.com.