“Tell Me on a Sunday” at The Avenue Theater is a rewarding one-act, one-woman musical cycle of love and loss, soaring on the estimable talents of Megan Van de Hey. Not only is Van de Hey’s vocal purity evident, her gift for comedic and dramatic turns — sometimes within a single phrase — is on display.
* * * ½ stars | Musical
More than a tuneful night of songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber, “Tell Me on a Sunday,” in Van de Hey’s hands, becomes an emotional ride, from giddy crush to wrenching heartbreak and round and round.
It takes a performer with great range in both vocal and acting chops to carry off these uninterrupted 70 minutes. Van de Hey wrings sly laughs or groans of recognition from the material and displays flashes of anger or bubbly excitement moment to moment.
Certain references in the 1980s lyrics by Don Black are dated (it was written in the era of Tavern on the Green), but the soaring optimism and crushing letdowns of romance are timeless.
Through letters home to her “Mum,” an English girl (Van de Hey) recounts the ups and downs with the men in her life, stiff-upper-lipping her way forward. She reports on a potential happily-ever-after as a pampered wife in a gated mansion in L.A., skewers the phoniness she finds there (“Capped Teeth and Caesar Salad”), sees a potential future with a younger man in Greenwich Village, navigates possible compromised happiness in an affair with a married man (“It’s Not the End of the World (If He’s Married)”) and deals with infidelities along the way.
The story is less intriguing than the vocal performance.
The “girl” uses a few bits of apparel, snuggling with a blanket or donning sunglasses or a man’s shirt to suggest different moods, but her pipes do the work.
Musical director Trent Hines provides effective, animated piano accompaniment; scenic and prop designer Richard H. Pegg has created a spare two-level set with a projection screen at the rear to effectively change locales from New York to Beverly Hills, from a shining night skyline to a cozy apartment interior. Overall, director Robert Michael Sanders has set a brisk pace for the proceedings.
But it’s Van de Hey’s show, and she owns it.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830, jostrow@denverpost.com or @ostrowdp
“TELL ME ON A SUNDAY”
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Don Black. Directed by Robert Michael Sanders, music direction by Trent Hines. Starring Megan Van de Hey. Through Feb. 27 at The Avenue Theater, 417 E. 17th Avenue, Denver. Tickets 303-321-5925 or online at
