Sunday, March 09, 2008

"As Time Goes By"

Put down that martini and whip out your notebook: Cabaret singer Andrea Marcovicci has just taken the stage and there might be a pop quiz on the Great American Songbook.

"How many of you here know where the song 'As Time Goes By' originally comes from?" she'll ask an unwary audience, as hands shoot up. "Wrong! It's not from 'Casablanca.' It's from 'Everybody's Welcome,' a 1931 Broadway show you've never heard of!"

And how about the plot thread linking virtually every movie that Fred Astaire made? "He falls in love at first sight in all of them," the singer tells another audience, brandishing film posters, yellowed newspaper clippings and other memorabilia to prove her point.

Get ready for more of the same this week when Marcovicci, one of America's top cabaret performers, brings her songs and traveling classroom to the Gardenia in West Hollywood for a two-weekend gig. "Marcovicci and Movies II," revisiting a theme she first explored 22 years ago, will examine the history and romance of popular songs in films, from "The Gay Divorcee" to "Toy Story 2."

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