When I saw Angela Ingersoll (who made me a most happy fella as the fair lady hosting New Faces Sing Broadway 1956) as Judy Garland in Porchlight’s production of End of the Rainbow a few years ago, I thought she was great (she won the Jefferson Award for her performance) but I had no idea she was the energizer bunny in disguise, given that the Garland we see in that show is drug addicted and near death.

She didn’t wear a rabbit costume and bang a drum for Porchlight’s New Faces Halloween-adjacent show, but, her monster singing talent aside, Ingersoll’s enthusiasm, energy, and electricity made me think of When Harry Met Sally, as I definitely would like to have what she’s having, and need to add her to my growing list of theater obsessions.

As for the new faces themselves, Porchlight once again pulled off the trick of treating the audience to a frighteningly excellent array of talented artists, none of whom, this time, I had ever seen before. Thus, my impressions were fittingly written on a blank slate, as a couple of the performers will be appearing in an upcoming production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, put on by the Blank Theater Company, which is only a couple years old, and previously unknown to me, though I was at the comfortable, though fairly bare-bones space they inhabit at The Edge Theater for the Hell in a Handbag production of Poseidon: An Upside Down Musical.

As amazing as the never-ending parade of wonderful singers who grace these Porchlight programs is, there also is new blood to be found behind the scenes. This show marked the directorial debut of Brianna Borger, whom I saw perform in Southern Gothic.  Next up in the series, New Faces Sing Broadway Now and New Faces Sing Broadway 1987.