TCNJ Musical Theater (TMT) consistently amazes and entertains and their 2010 Cabaret Night on Feb. 19 was no exception.
Titled “No One is Alone,” this Cabaret Night was set in the Library Auditorium and featured duets, trios and larger group performances. The show on Friday night opened with senior communication studies major Cat Cosentino and senior history and international studies double major Jerry Tower singing “Alone” by Heart. Unfortunately for them, they could never be alone together because, as Tower said while glaring at the audience, “there’s a bunch of other people who won’t go away.”
The next number, “Stud and Babe” from the off-Broadway show “I Love You You’re Perfect Now Change,” kept the audience laughing as performers Zach Mazouat, junior art education major, and Jill Hernandez, junior philosophy major, dressed in “nerdy” clothes and fantasized about what it would be like to be “hot.”
There were 20 performances in total ranging from hilarious to uplifting to downright sad. The quartet “But I Do” from the musical “I Love You Because” was beautiful and heartbreaking, as was the duet “For Good” from “Wicked.”
Dreena Moran, senior English major, and Gabi Crespo, sophomore nursing major, hammed up the stage in the “Shoop Shoop Song” and seemed to love every second of it. “One Night In Bangkok” from “Chess” showcased Vinny Scafuto, senior communication studies and history major and president of TMT. Scafuto hip-thrusted and did corny dance moves while his costar Mark Smith, junior communication studies major, played chess in order to make his song more “classy.”
As Cosentino pointed out, the great part about Cabaret Night as opposed to TMT’s Broadway Night is that the performers are not restricted to singing musical theater songs. Friday night’s show featured songs by the Goo Goo Dolls, Taylor Swift and Bonnie Tyler. Even Disney songs were included in an a capella medley by sophomore music performance and French double major Sergio Hernandez and freshman digital arts major Liz Gerger.
Scafuto and Cosentino reunited after their amazing Broadway Night duet from “The Toxic Avenger” to sing “Come What May,” from “Moulin Rouge!” They dedicated the love ballad “to TMT since it owns our souls.”
TMT’s next production is the Spring musical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” which runs April 7-11.
