Christine Andreas: Bewitched … Again!

by David Anthony Fox

cabaret

Our holidays just got a little happier, the bells a little more jingly. Christine Andreas, one of Philadelphia's favorite actress/singers, will be back for four performances of intimate cabaret at the Prince Music Theater.

The Prince must seem like a new home to Andreas. She's been part of the theater's cabaret season before, and in October, she picked up a Barrymore for her superb performance there in Pal Joey.

That Joey gig was a natural, since for a long time the stage was Andreas' preferred habitat. Only a few years into her career, she was picked to play Eliza Doolittle in the 1976 New York revival of My Fair Lady. Other Broadway success followed, and it seemed a cinch that Andreas would continue there indefinitely.

But things changed. Andreas found that her artistic interests were maturing, and moving toward the more intimate -- and often more challenging -- milieu of cabaret. The style suited her, because over the last 20-plus years her voice has become richer and more voluptuous, her physical beauty more stunning. (There's a reason she was cast as Ava Gardner in a TV movie.)

The working situation suited her, too. On a more personal note, a few years ago Andreas gave birth to a child with special needs. Cabaret engagements allow her greater flexibility and more time to be with her family.

At the Prince, expect her show to resemble the hit engagement she put together for Manhattan's elegant Café Carlyle. The songs there included favorites like "Autumn in New York," "In a Sentimental Mood" and -- nodding again to Eliza Doolittle -- "Show Me." Her New York reviews were rapturous.

And if here at the Prince, as the show's title suggests, Andreas throws in "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" -- the cornerstone of her Pal Joey performance -- well, even better.

Christine Andreas: Bewitched … Again!, Sat., Dec. 27, 8 p.m., Sun., Dec. 28, 3 p.m., Wed., Dec. 31, 7 and 10 p.m., $48-$75, Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St., 215-569-9700.

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