At age 3½, Izaiah Reiser already knows all the words to every song in the Broadway smash “Frozen.”
Of course, it helps that mommy Caissie Levy is the star, the first to play Elsa in the stage show spun off the top-grossing animated movie. The 38-year-old Levy recently acknowledged that the little one is in the spotlight with Levy’s husband and ex-actor David Reiser when she is off stage and at their Upper West Side New York City home.
“He’s hilarious,” she said of the toddler during a phone chat from her New York City home. “He’s a sweet, smart, funny kid — and it’s just been so much fun having him in my life.
“And he’s a musical kid. Always running around and singing and dancing. I think it’s in his DNA.”
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She promised to share stories of the youngster in between songs at her 75-minute Cabaret at The Commons show set for 7:30 p.m. Aug. 22 at The Commons in downtown Columbus. She has been piecing together the concert in between “Frozen” performances. The daughter of a hard-working Ontario physician of 41 years — her equally tireless mother ran the office — she laughed about being a focused Type A personality.
“As a mom, I’m used to juggling a lot of things at once,” she said.
Her set list, with the support of pianist-guitarist Matt Hinckley, will include stripped-down tunes from her Broadway or London West End shows: “Rent,” “Hair,” “Ghost: The Musical,” “Les Miserables” (which she saw at age 8 and was obsessed with), “Wicked” and “Frozen.” Such material is part of her 2013 extended-play folk-pop disc “With You” that includes one of her songwriter husband’s original numbers.
But if you have the firm idea she will belt her current show’s biggest hit in standard fashion to give you Big Apple chills, let it go. Keep in mind that this is a creative performer who once hilariously-yet-powerfully merged “Let It Go” with “Let It Be” for one solo 54 Below performance that drew laughter, screams of approval and a wall of applause.
“People always can pop in the (2018) cast album and hear the show version,” she said. “In concert now, the song is slightly different.”
The concert, which already has attracted some 300 ticket buyers, probably also will include a tune by Rod Stewart, with whom she toured with as a backup vocalist, possibly a Joni Mitchell number (a personal favorite), a Beatles song and perhaps a Norah Jones selection.
“My set list is almost always in flux,” she said. “But I think people can get a real taste of who I am as a person.”
Which partly means late-born hippie. She would have loved the chance to be at Woodstock a half-century ago (“the character of Sheila in ‘Hair’ is probably the character that’s closest to me in real life”). She grew up listening to the Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones.
“My bread and butter,” she said. “And in the ‘90s, I was a real grunge-scene kid with Pearl Jam and Nirvana and Radiohead. I think all of those influences turned me into a pretty eclectic music lover. And I think my voice lends itself really well to pop-rock, so I’ve always been a left-of-center Broadway leading lady.”
Though she is the one and only stage Elsa in the hit Disney show, she hates winter in real life. And, in childhood, she never got into the princess scene, preferring bike riding and more. In fact, one way she has relaxed between performances of “Frozen” has been shooting hoops, hearkening to her days as a 5-foot-5 sharp-shooting forward on her hometown high school basketball team.
Away from the stage, her home is filled with family-themed decor, from her dad’s old, wooden office sign to her grandma’s chandeliers.
“I’m very sentimental,” she said. “I love the history within things, and I like to have things around me that I really have feelings about, rather than pieces that simply look good.”
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What: Broadway star Caissie Levy (currently Elsa in "Frozen") performing a 75-minute show in the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic’s popular series Cabaret at The Commons. Levy said she planned to sign copies her extended-play disc "With You" after the show.
When: 7:30 p.m. Aug. 22.
Where: The Commons, 300 Washington St. in downtown Columbus.
Tickets: $45, $60 and $75.
Information: 812-376-2638 or thecip.org.
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