“You’ve Got A Friend” 4 Chairs at Hey Nonny!

***** Once again, Lauren Berman has brought a one night cabaret experience to Hey Nonny in downtown Arlington Heights. For those of you unaware of this cool spot in downtown Arlington Heights, you have no idea what you are missing. It is like two storefronts, one being a fantastic restaurant and the other, a true cabaret style lounge, with some great food and terrific drinks, but of greater importance, some cool performances on their stage.

They have jazz, blues, country wester, and every so often, the beauty of Lauren Berman’s Four Chairs, takes to the stage to put on a themed musical show. Tonight, it was an evening designed to bring music to the forefront that represents “You’ve Got A Friend”. While the original schedule included five singers with a pianist, due to an illness, Lauren had to cut back to four singers ( which truly works with the name 4 Chairs). These two guys and two gals were terrific. As it turns out, I have seen most, if not all of them, in area musical productions ( the recent “Godspell” in Skokie), but tonight, doing duets and solos truly showed the brilliance of their talent, and thanks to the direction of Berman, it truly shined through.

The four performers worked the audience to a “T”. They were not characters in a play, but performers telling us bits and pieces about their lives, and the friendships they have been a part of, including the one that has brought them together. Let’s face it, doing a show tends to create some wonderful friendships. If one looks at the theatrical community of Chicago, one can see the love and adoration between the performers. Yes, I am sure that once in a while they might be competing for a role, but over time, that is just the business and will never take away the love and respect that they have for each other. This show sparkled with love!

The piano player, Tyeese Braslavsky is a gem who tonight, did a number of her own singing “In My Own Little Corner” and was a delight.

The crowd ,  coming out on a bitter cold Wednesday night warmed up quickly as Kaitlin Feely & Abbey Loria opened with “I Can’t Imagine”. Mark Yacullo followed with “Someone to Fall Back On” and then the 4th performer, Nicki Lan ( in reality Nicholas, but Nicki works) showed his comedic touch with “My Dogs” The numbers flowed, one after another, each one bringing the audience deeper into the concept of how each of our performers relied on others. The first act ended with Kaitlin and Nickie doing “Get Happy/Happy Days”. It was a perfect blend of comedy and love mixed together and brought smiles to every face in the crowd.

The second act opened with “Party Hat” handled to perfection by Abbey & Nickie ( who once again showed his comic touch, often reminding me of Frank Galati back in our days at Glenbrook High School). During this segment, Kaitlin did a great rendition of “How Did We Come To This” and Mark & Niickie were adorable doing “If You Were Gay” from “Avenue Q”. Kaitlin & Abbey did another duet , “For Good” and then the four outstanding talents ended the show with “You’ve Got A Friend”, and by this time, everyone in the audience felt that they were in fact friends with not only the four talented performers, but each other, as well.

NOTE: The missing person, who I have seen before, Mai Hartwich would have made five wonderful performers.

To see what is happening with Four Chairs, visit  www.4chairstheatre.com

To learn more about Hey Nonny, visit www.heynonny.com

Hey Nonny is located at 10 S. Vail in Arlington Heights    224-202-0750