After several seasons absence, charismatic Jason Cozmo returned to perform on Fire Island on July 22, bringing his loving, winning, and detailed tributes to Julie Andrews, Liza Minnelli, and Dolly Parton to the Ice Palace, and colleagues Ariel Sinclair, Holly Dae, and DJ Chuck McTague joined Jason in “The Night the Stars Come Out.”
Jason began with wholesome Julie Andrews as Maria, doing a “Sound of Music” medley, consisting of the title song, “Do Re Mi” with the audience cast the Von Trapp children, and “My Favorite Things.”
An interlude from Holly, in glitzy red, setting off her blonde hair, was a mash-up that included “Rhythm of the Night,” “Never Gonna Get It,” and “All That She Wants,” which Ariel followed with her “If You’re Happy and You Know It” mash-up.
Jason came back as Liza, also flashy in red, belting out a frenetic “Some People,” from “Gypsy,” and explaining, in a song full of tongue-twisters, that she was “Liza with a Z.” In a merry “Ring Them Bells,” she told the tale of how Shirley DeVore went half a world away to find her love. Jason ended the set with Liza’s show-stopping signature song “New York, New York.”
Holly interspersed “Like a Prayer,” “Say a Little Prayer,” and “Jesus, Take the Wheel” with appropriate movie dialogue. Ariel gave us her bawdy “Wizard of Oz” number, “If I Only Had a Snatch.” Then Ariel and Holly held a modeling contest.
Jason’s endearing Dolly opened with an upbeat “Nine to Five,” vowed to cheer up because “(They’re having a party just) Two Doors Down,” and pleaded with queens who impersonate her, as well as with “Jolene,” not to take her man away from her. Jason touched us with Dolly’s song about the “Coat of Many Colors” that her mama made for her out of odd-and-end rags and she and Ariel recruited Sabel Scities, Brandon Cutrell, and various audience ‘volunteers’ to assist in a lively “Little Bitty Pissant Country Place” from “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” Jason’s encore, embracing his whole audience, was “I Will Always Love You.”