On August 30, the Ice Palace presented a truly grand night of singing, as Sirius xm satellite radio’s Julie James, making her Ice Palace debut, and Fort Lauderdale’s Jennifer McClain collaborated on a terrific tribute to “Broadway Dames,” with pianist Jack Aaronson at the Privia and Chuck McTague in the DJ booth.
Sporting, at first, identical white dresses with, appropriately, a cherry pattern, Jennifer and Julie began by blending their polished voices in “Let Me Be Your Star,” from television’s “Smash.” Julie etched torch song “Since I Don’t Have You,” from “Grease,” brightly, augmenting it with soprano high notes aplenty. Wielding Carmen’s red fan, Jennifer lustily shared that she’s “Everybody’s Girl,” from “Steel Pier,” but wryly lamented that availability in “You Can Always Count on Me,” from “City of Angels.”
Portraying “conjoined twins … attached at the booty,” as they put it, Julie and Jennifer harmonized on “Who Will Love Me as I Am?” from “Side Show.” Julie joyously assured us that she was “Keepin’ out of Mischief Now,” familiar from “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” and Jennifer expansively invited “Bring on the Men,” from “Jekyll and Hyde,” and let us know what happens “On Grindr”—and Growlr and Scruff—in her raunchy response to “On Broadway,” with audience members joining in on its eponymous refrain. Between songs, the divas dished, as when Jennifer offered, “It’s a secret the way I got back from the Pines last night,” which led to Julie’s rejoinder, “Not remembering is not the same as a secret!”
Julie spoke of interviewing Dame Julie Andrews on Sirius to introduce her bel canto “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” from “The Sound of Music.” The duo’s ecstatic “In His Eyes,” from “Jekyll and Hyde,” followed. Jennifer touched us with one of her “more serious,” as opposed to Sirius, songs, “Fifty Percent,” from “Ballroom.” Julie gave us a TV theme song medley, touching on, in rapid-fire succession, “Good Times,” “Golden Girls,” “Maude,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Facts of Life,” “Three’s Company,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Love Boat,” “The Flintstones,” “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Star Trek,” “All in the Family,” and many others, and paid homage to Bernadette Peters with “Unexpected Song,” from “Song and Dance.”
Among the most striking of the singers’ joint efforts was “I Know Him So Well,” from “Chess.” After two more solos, Jennifer’s James Bond detour “Skyfall” and Julie’s wrist-slitting “Maybe This Time,” from “Cabaret,” the singers concluded by saluting their friendship with “For Good,” from “Wicked.”