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The story involves four friends, professional singers all, reaching for that elusive star, overcoming obstacles and enduring petty humiliations in the process. Kristin (Teri Wilder) sings in a nightclub run by an insensitive sleaze (Gary Taylor). Val (Cynthia Jackson) finds that her husband and children selfishly demand the greater part of her time, leaving little room for music. Gina (Michele Van Note) delivers singing telegrams while dressed as a chicken, and Andrea (Ellsworth) is singing jingles for a feminine deodorant spray called Breeze. All of them are dynamic singers, talented enough to snag a record contract if they would just keep trying, but the man handing out the contracts (Jim O’Heir) is more interested in Paula Abdul look-alikes and the four women aren’t getting any younger. Tired of singing commercial jingles and nightclub standards, they get together once a month to perform music that’s really important to them–and Chick Singer Night is born.
Chick Singer Night is a terrific idea. But its origins are not exactly rife with dramatic tension, and the play is as predictable and cliche-ridden as the diary of any struggling, starry-eyed performer on the rise. Stories of singing to doting grandparents or in the basement with a stack of Barbra Streisand records segue into confrontations with absurdly touchy commercial clients, slimy club owners, supercilious record producers, and catty competitors. This is all made even harder to swallow by the ever-in-hand cordless microphones; it’s tough work being a singer, but as long as there’s an amp nearby we know it’ll be all right. Director Mark E. Lococo might have tried to talk his singers out of these mikes and turned down the prerecorded accompaniment if he’d wanted a more theatrical approach; on the one occasion that someone sang without a mike, she had no problem filling the Ruggles Cabaret space.
