It was 1963 when vocal powerhouses Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand met for the first time.
Streisand, 21, appeared on “The Judy Garland Show,” where she sang two songs by herself and joined Garland for two duets, including “Happy Days/Get Happy.” It was the only time they worked together.
“Afterward, she used to visit me and give me advice,” Streisand told Ben Brantley in a 2016 New York Times profile. “She came to my apartment in New York, and she said to me, ‘Don’t let them do to you what they did to me.’ I didn’t know what she meant then. I was just getting started.”
Garland died from an overdose in 1969.
But now, the icons are back together again, thanks to celebrity impersonators and drag queens Summer Orlando and Barbra Joan Streetsand. The duo will bring their 90-minute “The Judy and Barbra Show” to The Gold Room on Friday and Saturday. They’ll also do a brunch show on Sunday.
“We don’t really impersonate them,” Orlando said from New Haven, Conn., where they both live. “I believe we become these incredible icons. It’s not just a tribute show. We bring them to life in a way that can’t be explained.”
The genesis of the show began five years ago, when the two got to talking and decided to team up. They started with a show in New Haven, then were asked to do a loosely scripted, improvised New Year’s Eve show as Garland and Streisand. Over the last four years it’s developed into a fully scripted work with lots of famous songs, including Garland’s classic “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
In the first act, Streisand has invited guests over for a concert in the basement of her Malibu, Calif., compound, which is a real-life thing that features a shopping mall and frozen yogurt shop. But she gets lonely and wants a co-host. Garland is the only performer she got along with, but she’s long gone. So she decides to hold a séance, and with the help of the audience brings Garland back from the great beyond for a reunion. In the second act, the two women go back in time and re-create the famous “Judy Garland Show” episode.
Orlando calls the two singers, who were two decades apart in age, “friends/frenemies.” A frenemy is a friend with whom you share a rivalry.
“Barbra was becoming the next big star as Judy was growing older,” she said. “After they met, they became fast friends. Judy became the role model. Barbra would go over, and Judy would give pointers.”
Streetsand has had a love affair with Streisand since childhood, and has been impersonating her for almost three decades. She loves Streisand’s voice and that she looks like the famous lady.
“Her personality and mine are similar,” Streetsand said. “We both have stage fright. I have her mannerisms from watching her all these years. And her voice — I have her inflections down by heart.”
Orlando has her own personal connection to Garland. She was the first male actor in the world to play Garland’s famous Dorothy role as a drag performer in a production of “The Wizard of Oz.”
“It was something I was always raised and told no about,” Orlando said. “I was told you can’t be Dorothy because you’re a boy and boys can’t play girl parts. Judy didn’t like being told no either. She always found a way to do it.”
Contact the writer: 636-0270
This content was originally published here.
