Glee’s Jane Lynch back on the stage
See Jane Sing is a touring, original, song, dance and banter show
Glee has wrapped after six seasons and Jane Lynch ( a. k. a. Sue Sylvester) is already well into her next career — cabaret star.
Her first post- Glee gig is her original song, dance and banter show, See Jane Sing.
“This cabaret is more of an outgrowth of my sketch comedy days, working with Second City and the Annoyance Theatre,” Lynch said, referring to the two Chicago troupes.
In the early 1990s, Lynch was one of the Annoyance actors who brought the group’s Brady Brunch re- enactments to Los Angeles. Then she opted not to return to Chicago. Or the stage.
“I started doing television and film,” said Lynch. “I didn’t think I’d go back to theatre.”
But then, for two months during her 2013 hiatus from Glee, Lynch traded her Sue Sylvester polyester tracksuits for the gaudy flowered frocks of Miss Hannigan in the Broadway revival of Annie.
“I had the best time and I got the bite all over again,” she said.
Lynch got the opportunity a year later when the producers of New York’s famed 54 Below club called to offer her four nights. Did she have a cabaret show ready to go?
“I said, ‘ I don’t have one, but I will get one,’ ” Lynch said.
She had Glee colleague Matthew Morrison around for moral support and the backstage creatives from the show ready to arrange her music. She also recruited fellow Second City graduate Kate Flannery, best known as Meredith on The Office, to hit the road and sing along on several numbers, including a jazz rendition of the Fiddler on the Roof ballad Far From the Home I Love.
Other selections include Dave Frishberg ’s Slappin’ the Cakes on Me, faux- folk tunes from the Christopher Guest movie A Mighty Wind and what Lynch describes as “songs I used to sing at the kitchen table with my parents who were wonderful harmonizers.”
To warm up for the spring tour, Lynch was grateful Sue Sylvester got more chances to sing on Glee.
“I feel like my voice is in the best shape it’s ever been,” said Lynch who then asked that that line not be printed because there are people who will think, “Really? It’s not that good.”