YOUNG VOICES, BRIGHT LIGHTS

Two dozen aspiring performers take the stage with
enthusiasm, confidence and plenty of personality

Ariel Jolie (Wasim Ahmad)

It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to make an educated guess that most of the smiling faces, cell-phone cameras and wildly applauding hands at a cabaret show filled with kid performers belong to proud parents, grandparents, siblings and friends connected to the singers onstage, ranging in age from 6 through the teens. The place is The Green Room 42, where longtime professional vocalists and early-career song stylists are usually presented. But it’s a weekend afternoon, July 26, and these students are cheerily strutting their stuff. With just a couple of exceptions, the performers are girls, many dressed for the occasion in sparkly silver spangles, sequins and shiny trim—light-catching touches that echo the show’s title, All That Glitters. And it’s all being livestreamed for Aunt Mildred and Grandpa Herman who can’t attend in person. It’s a long parade of a show, with song after song. There are 24—count ’em, twenty-four—youngsters on the bill. The audience is getting a lot of shebang for its bucks.

Presenting this panoply of pre-teens and teens is an organization called Spotlight Kidz. Proudly introducing every songbird is director/producer Sandy Kost-Sterner, with Barbara Kost-Lonergan billed as her assistant. The “Name Is the Same” situation makes the amateur Sherlock dare another guess: that they are sisters. A concurrent occurrence suggesting siblinghood happens when glancing at the roster of performers: five instances of people with the same surnames. And there must be quite a lot of energy, enrollment and interest in this Spotlight program, as the 1:00 concert reported on here is just the first of a two-show day.

These aren’t just local lasses and lads or those within a short commute from New Jersey and Westchester: as they introduce themselves by name, many say where they are from, and those places include Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Gwyneth Porter and Cooper Johnsen (Instagram @cooper_j008)

The repertoire is, thankfully, mostly age-appropriate, with many songs from family-friendly musical theater. Music director Jason Wetzel provides solid and supportive piano accompaniment throughout, comfortably handling the variety of styles and genres. Wisely, the selection from the heavy, dramatic Les Misérables is one written for the young Cosette. But if you’re already guessing that there are also cute, perky items from Annie, Shrek and Seussical, you are correct. Double points for guessing Matilda, as it is sampled twice. Some of the teens venture into more grown-up fare, picking from relatively recent shows such as Catch Me If You Can, Mean Girls and a musical currently playing, The Outsiders. Stephen Sondheim is represented by numbers from the fairy-tale-centric Into the Woods and the title song from Anyone Can Whistle.

With lots of post-Golden Age choices, it is refreshing to hear a few classics from before the 1960s: “Every Night at Seven” from the 1951 movie Royal Wedding (although Broadway audiences heard it more recently when it was added to a revival of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever); “Anything You Can Do” from Annie Get Your Gun; and “Swinging on a Star,” introduced onscreen by Bing Crosby in Going My Way (1944). After this marathon, the entire company comes together for a vibrant group finale, “A Million Dreams” from the film The Greatest Showman (2017).

It would be unwieldy—and really unfair—to write a detailed review of every single performer in a showcase with so many participants. These young singers are at different ages and stages of their training, and the point of an afternoon like this is to give each of them the invaluable experience of stepping onto a professional cabaret stage and making it their own for a few minutes.

Still, two performers particularly caught my attention. The cool, calm, collected and comical Cooper Johnsen nails the one-upmanship challenge of “Anything You Can Do” better than some adults I’ve seen try it. And six-year-old Ariel Jolie is a real standout, displaying stage presence and plenty of pluck in “Beyond My Wildest Dreams,” written for a certain popular animated movie’s title character who happens to share her first name. Three cheers for Jolie.

Best wishes to these young singers as they embrace the songs of musical theater and learn their craft.

Spotlight Kidz at The Green Room 42 (Spotlight Kidz)

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

Spotlight Kidz Cabaret: All That Glitters
The Green Room 42, 570 Tenth Avenue in New York City
July 26, 2026
for more information, follow Spotlight Kidz

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦