On July 31, singer Sonny Shores (Ken Woodhouse), with his show “My Eyes Are Up Here,” became the first male performer ever to star in Cherry’s Monday evening dinner-and-a-show Dining with the Divas series. DJ Justin assisted.
Ken, not yet Sonny, began the show by sitting at an onstage table and ordering “Frim Fram Sauce” and other improbabilities from Robbie Ranger and continued with “You Make Me Feel So Young,” with a few rude interpolations. The first guest, the fabulous Donna Piranha, gave us “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” and a hot “Lady Marmalade” and introduced this writer, singing “L-O-V-E.”
Then Sonny arrived, singing a romantic “Besame Mucho” and a Brazilian samba number. The lovely Bubbles Atlantic offered “I Live Alone” and “Steamy Windows,” with an onstage costume change in between. Sonny returned to dedicate a brave “Smile” and endearing “Dream a Little Dream of Me” to his mother. He turned pain into art with the “Dentist Song” from “Little Shop of Horrors.”
Sonny, Donna, and Bubbles did two fantastic productions number: “Beauty School Dropout,” from “Grease,” which found Sonny in choir robe and angel wings and his guests in curlers, and “Both Reached for the Gun,” from “Chicago,” with Bubbles as ventriloquist Sonny’s puppet and Donna as the Press.
Sonny saluted Frank Sinatra, the seasons, and life with “The Summer Wind” and “I’m Gonna Live Till I Die,” and Charles Aznavour with a bilingual “For Me Formidable.” Busted Queen put in an appearance, doing Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.” Returning to “Chicago,” Sonny turned modest with “Mr. Cellophane,” as the wait staff looked right through him and walked right by him and changed the set to the one for Busted’s show. Then Sonny sang, pertinently, “I’m Busted,” and paired “When You’re Drinking,” to the tune of “Smile,” with “Sonny Is a Tramp,” to the music of “The Lady Is a Tramp.” “Mambo Italiano” and bits of “Love Potion Number Nine” and “Everybody’s Talkin’” followed. Sonny finished off this very full and fully satisfying evening with contrasting songs “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway (if you don’t have any Jews)” and “I’m Going Home.”