"Tell Me On a Sunday"

August 22, 2023 — It was like a homecoming. After an absence of nearly four years, I returned to the Peterborough Players Professional Theatre in Peterborough, New Hampshire. There were several reasons for the absence, chief among them COVID, which pretty much wiped out the 2020 theater season, and even in 2021 I was cutting back on my theater attendance out of an abundance of caution, with COVID diminished but still hanging around with new variants showing up regularly.

Now observing its 90th season, Peterborough Players presented Tell Me On a Sunday. This was a one-woman show, only a week after seeing a one-man show at the Barnstormers. This musical has been presented in many forms since Andrew Lloyd Webber chose Don Black as his lyricist in 1979. The one-act play, running only about an hour and ten minutes, tells the story of an English girl who comes to the United States in search of love. As are other Lloyd Webber productions, the story is told entirely in song. Ilyse Robbins served as director and choreographer for this Players production. Jenny Kim-Godfrey was music director.

I was delighted when I arrived at the Players and opened my program and discovered Bridget Beirne was the lone performer, appearing as "the girl" who was unnamed in most of the many performances worldwide, but when Roberta Peters assumed the role on Broadway, the girl was given the name Emma. In the Players program, I noticed Beirne was listed as Emma, although the name is never mentioned during the performance.

I had seen the very versatile Beirne many times, but never in a singing role. I must admit I was stunned. Beirne, wearing a huge, realistic red wig of flowing curls and non-descript, mixed attire, demonstrated a terrific voice as she went through the twenty-four songs that tell the story of Emma's attempts at finding love in America, interspersed with letters home to her "mummie," all in a perfect British accent. She has shown a gift for various accents in other performances which left me wondering which was real. I finally had the pleasure of a brief conversation with her a few years ago and discovered her natural speech is standard American English.

Moving about scenic designer Shelly Barish's multiple-level set with lots of windows, staircases and balconies, her lusty voice going through the twenty-four songs with few breaks, Beirne was backed up by an excellent orchestra conducted by Jenny Kim-Godfrey who also played the flute, all combining to produce some of the finest music I've heard in summer theater in years. I was sorry to see the the show end. At curtain call, the nearly full-house showed their appreciation with a standing ovation.