Donna Lynne Champlin Actress, singer, musician, writer, dancer and comedienne Donna Lynne Champlin was most recently seen on Broadway as ’Pirelli’ in John Doyle’s acclaimed revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. Other Broadway: Hal Prince and Carol Burnett’s Hollywood Arms, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sir Alan Ayckbourn’s By Jeeves and Richard Nelsons’ James Joyce’s The Dead. Off Broadway: Flight of the Lawnchair Man (Oustanding Actress Award), My Life With Albertine, Reunion, Stars In Your Eyes, Carnegie Hall’s Very Warm For May, Encores! Bloomer Girl and the Metropolitan Opera’s recent Master Class. Other recent NYC: First lady Suite, The Audience, and Meet John Doe. Recent regional: Master Class (Berkeley Rep) directed by Moises Kaufman, Harold and Maude (Paper Mill Playhouse) and Meet John Doe and Very Good Eddie (Goodspeed Opera House). Cast Albums include: Sweeney Todd, By Jeeves, Albertine, 3hree, Carols For a Cure (2000, 2005, 2006), The Lady and the Slipper, Our Heart Sings. Training: Carnegie Mellon University (BFA) and Oxford University (Shakespeare and Chekhov scholarship. For more information about DLC, please visit www.donnalynnechamplin.com or www.myspace.com/dlchamplin.
"While she was appearing as Pirelli in the recent critically-acclaimed revival of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd on Broadway, musical theatre diva-in-training Donna Lynne Champlin was approached by Ars Nova about doing a night at their up-and-coming 'Broadway Spotlight' series. It took some encouragement from a friend, and, apparently, a few cocktails, but Champlin relented and came up with a brilliant assortment of stories and songs she called Finishing The Hat that garnered rave reviews from the critics and public alike. Thankfully, she brought it back for an encore performance October 1st as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival, taping the show in front of a live audience. Whether you want to call it theatre or cabaret (it's the latter, by the way), Finishing The Hat is brilliant and Champlin is a dazzling performer who has only scratched the surface of her amazing, multi-faceted talent.
A born comedienne in the mold of Nancy Walker or Kaye Ballard, with a voice capable of everything from standards to light opera, Champlin got her early break in New York in a concert production of Very Warm for May at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall. This lead to Broadway roles in James Joyce's The Dead, By Jeeves, Hollywood Arms and, of course, Sweeney Todd, with stops in Bloomer Girl, My Life With Albertine, First Lady Suite, Meet John Doe and The Flight of the Lawnchair Man from 3hree which Champlin reprised at NYMF in September in its expanded version following a run at Goodspeed.
Her solo-show, accompanied by the versatile Andrew Gerle is an inspired pairing of stories from her personal travails in life and show business with songs from Broadway and the pop world. The gimmick for Finishing The Hat is that Champlin has audience members pick cards out of a top hat, each of which contains the name of a particular story that she and her friends have selected as those worthy of re-telling in her show. A song is then paired up with each story so that each section is in itself a small three-act play or vignette. For example, at this performance, she concluded the show with a story about the worst audition she can't forget (for Broadway's recent revival of Oklahoma) as well as the best audition she can't remember (for the legendary Hal Prince). Both are hysterical.
Champlin's song choices are as smart as her observations about her life are funny. And heartbreaking! To be sure, Champlin's humor is self-deprecating and her storytelling is filled with satirical panache, but in her show, she also opens a window onto her soul that is as riveting in what it reveals about truths that have informed her entire life, as it is about her bravery as a performer. And yet her revelations never feel calculated or exploitative.
An Irish pub song serves as her encore in which she admonishes the young musical theatre aspirants in the audience not to believe stories they may hear about how being on Broadway is just another job and isn't really special. She details her Broadway debut in what's an emotional story about the power of theatre and the magic of performing. It's a story young actors should cherish. And it's a tribute to Champlin that, as the show ended after two hours of sustained laughter, the audience could have stayed all night."
-David Hurst Cabaret Scenes
More reviews for Finishing the Hat
"Why can't all cabaret shows be as wonderful as Donna Lynne Champlin's Finishing the Hat? I can't recall a better one since I attended my first one in 1966. Champlin, who does the show on her off-nights from Sweeney Todd, doesn't just sing songs that let us know who she is; she also tells fascinating stories that range from the hilarious (What was that growth on her gluteus maximus that just wouldn't stop getting bigger?) to the poignant (She's had many difficulties with her daddy). Of course, when you attend the show, you might not hear these stories .. because Champlin likes to wing it. Here's how: She offers her customers a hat full of paper-slips on which a certain word or phrase is written. Whichever one you choose, that inspires the story she'll tell. Don't miss the next time Champlin does Finishing the Hat. And say hello to me, for I know I'll be there again to hear what her other paper-slips will yield."
-Peter Filichia, Theatremania.com
"Donna Lynne Champlin is heart-rending. When she sings the sentiment is pungent enough to make you cry."
-Ben Brantley, The New York Times
"Donna Lynne Champlin manages to capture an unforced and untimely humble sass…making for an embracing experience."
-USA Today
"Donna Lynne Champlin is unswervingly straightforward"
-John Simon, New York Magazine
"An incisive portrait full of sparkle and sophistication, Donna Lynne Champlin recalls the grand comic spirit of the late Travis Hudson, the beloved Manhattan cabaret chanteuse."
-Variety
"From hit shows to hopeless romances, Donna Lynne Champlin has been through it all - and learned to laugh (and sing) about it. In "Finishing the Hat," Champlin combines sidesplitting comedy, touching insight, exhilarating music, and audience participation in a madcap mixture that makes each performance a thrill ride. It's a perfect showcase for the
dynamic voice and personality of one of Broadway's most exciting rising stars. Not just another cabaret show, Donna Lynne Champlin's "Finishing the Hat.. is great musical theater, better written (and better-performed) than most shows you'll see this year."
-Tim Dunleavy, BroadwayStars.com
"With the skill of a seasoned physical comic and the wry sense of humor of someone who has been there and back, Donna Lynne Champlin's cabaret tells us of career misadventures, disappointing boyfriends and freakishly odd personal experiences without ever seeming self-indulgent. While she’s most know for her work in musical theatre (even her straight play role in Broadway’s Hollywood Arms featured her vocal prowess)...and oh, yes we do get treated to her piercingly expressive belt and intelligent phrasing, but Finishing The Hat is truly centered on her talents as an engaging storyteller."
-Michael Dale, BroadwayWorld.com
"Since she burst on the scene in James Joyce’s The Dead more than eight years ago, Donna Lynne Champlin has made a name for herself as a superb actress and singer. She’s gone on to starring roles both on and off Broadway, but nothing showcases her immense talents like her one-woman show, Finishing the Hat. Begun at ARS NOVA during her run as Pirelli in Sweeney Todd, Champlin has polished and refined her distinctive mix of humiliating personal theatrical stories (complete with show tunes) into a delicious audience-participation format few performers could pull off. The gimmick is that Champlin has so many funny stories she can’t possibly tell them all in one evening, so audience members pull numbered cards out of a top hat to choose for her. The stories are unfailingly entertaining and her song choices perfect, one of the perennial favorites being about her obsession with Brian d’Arcy James, which leads into her “What Is It About Him?” from Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party (a show in which James starred). Accompanied by Tom Kitt, Champlin recently revived Finishing the Hat at the Laurie Beechman’s “Voices from the Great White Way” series August 11, and it deserves an Off-Broadway run of its own."
-David Hurst, NEXT Magazine
"Unique, clever, funny, inspired, creative! That’s what Donna Lynne Champlin has artistically invented in her on-going theater piece Finishing The Hat.” What does it mean? It's stories with songs from her personal and show business life.
Although the thought of putting a lot of work and time into creating a one-woman show wasn’t particularly appealing, after sitting and talking with friend Emily Skinner, it was evident that an audience would want to hear the various stories surrounding this multi-talented gal’s life. After all, DL (Donna Lynne) is not only a gloriously trained Broadway soprano, but also a dancer and musician (she plays piano, flute, accordion).
DL recently starred in the Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd, as well as James Joyce’s The Dead, By Jeeves and Hollywood Arms.
When Finishing The Hat first began at Ars Nova it was called Songs and Stories. About 15 stories were put into a hat and DL only got through half of them. So when the producer came backstage after the show and said you have to come back to FinishThe Hat, that cinched the theme and the name of the show.
Together with pianist Tom Kitt, DL takes us through her uproarious tale(s)… She is a zany comic filled with boundless energy until she morphs into ethereal softness singing “Smile.” …And on and on it goes for 90 minutes of laughter, pathos and clever pairing of stories and song. A new story is always added, this one “The Love Letter,” about critics and the reviews they’ve penned. Her response is an original song she wrote... Well, I won’t go into that one other than the fact that she won’t let her mother come and see this!
Donna Lynne Champlin belongs on “Saturday Night Live!""
-Sandy Durell, Cabaret Scenes
"Finishing The Hat is brilliant and Champlin is a dazzling performer who has only scratched the surface of her amazing, multi-faceted talent. FTH is an inspired pairing of stories from her personal travails in life and show business with songs from Broadway and the pop world….hilarious and heartbreaking! To be sure, Champlin's humor is self-deprecating and her storytelling is filled with satirical panache. But at that moment in her show, she opened a window onto her soul that was as riveting in what it revealed about a truth that had informed her entire life, as it was about her bravery as a performer…an emotional story about the power of theatre and the magic of performing. It's a story young actors should cherish. And it's a tribute to Champlin that, as the show ended after two hours of sustained laughter, the audience could have stayed all night."
-Cabaret Scenes
"Donna Lynne Champlin is easily one of the funniest, brightest and most imaginative people on the planet. A brilliant storyteller, Donna brings her wacky & amazing stories to life and walks you through every delicious detail. i laughed for two hours straight and screamed for more. seeing Donna Lynne perform is to see a performer at the top of her game. It doesn't get much better than this. i bow to her talent."
-Danny Burstein, DROWSY CHAPERONE (Tony Nominee)
"Donna Lynne has that brilliant and captivating ability to make you feel as if she's telling her hysterical stories to you over a cup of coffee. She can make you laugh until you cry and break your heart on the turn of a dime. Seeing her on stage is joyful and funny as it is inspiring."
-Alexander Gemignani, SWEENEY TODD (drama desk nom), ASSASSINS, LES MIZ
"I can tell you one thing – Donna Lynne Champlin is a true star,
Once word gets out she will be starring on a sitcom in 2 second flat."
-Drew Tappon, MTV Executive/creator of REAL WORLD
"DLC is wildly successful at doing what all other actors either dream of doing or fear most: the perfect one-person show. Yet, here she is: randomly and delightfully unleashing tales heroic and hysterical, devastatingly funny one second and rip-you-to-shreds moving the next, all the while charming the socks off of the audience with her warm, genuine persona and sensationally versatile singing voice. Expect names to be dropped, humility to be thrown to the wind and your ass to be laughed off in happy recognition that what happens off-stage is infinitely more interesting than what happens on. Here is a heroine for theatre afficionados: bravely traveling the bumpy road of the business called show with charm, grace, brains and talent to burn."
-John Bolton, SPAMALOT, TITANIC, FORUM
"Effortlessly funny and fearlessly personal. May weird things continue to happen to DLC so that she never runs out of material-- I laughed my ass off..speaking of which, 'Ass Ball' is a must see."
-Marc Kessler, Co-Conceiver of ALTAR BOYZ
I wish so much that I could go see Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Chris Van Allsburg was one of my favorite authors as a child and I would love to see how they turned Harris Burdick into a musical. I'm also super excited about the date change for your Birdland gig because it means I can see it!! My first Hat show, I'm so pumped, even though it means missing a day of rehearsal...
Wow, I should visit this page more often. I didn't realize until today that you had songs up, silly me. I saw "Halleluja" listed and that's one of my favorite favorite songs ever and if I didn't have class, I would honestly sit here and repeat the song a good twenty times. DL - you're amazing and your rendition of the song is simply stunning.
Not gonna lie; you should have a cabaret in March when all the spring breakers are there! Us college folk would love to get to see you again (because Sweeney got us hooked in the first place last year!)
Great show, as always. Can't wait for the next one (and there needs to be another so I can take all my friends!) But I LOVED the new story. And your encore always makes me a little weepy. :) It was wonderful seeing you again!
Love, Jess
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Yay, a FTH flyer on my page! But surely you know you don't have to remind ME that it's coming up! I literally advertise it to everyone around me every day, and I have friends attending who've never seen it before. EVERYONE around me knows this show is on the 12th. They may not know what it is, or why I'm so excited, but they know it's coming up ;)
