Audrey & Daniel Landers Debut "Mommy Issues" Cabaret Show

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Audrey Landers and Daniel Landers show off chemistry and campery.

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Let’s bake a cabaret cake, shall we? First, let’s take Audrey Landers , the actress cast in roles on The Love Boat, Charlie's Angels, The Dukes of Hazzard, and, especially, as Afton Cooper on Dallas, the singer who has racked up Gold and Platinum albums in the International music market, and the only woman to preserve the character of Valerie Clark on film. Next, add Daniel Landers, an openly gay singer-songwriter with a penchant for glitz and skin, fashion and feelings (and a huge social media presence). Now add a title like Mommy Issues, some sequins, some feathers, some wigs, some songs, and a piano, and Ta Da!, you’ve got a cabaret, frothy and frilly, and all shiny and colorful, like the frosting on a cake.

Mommy Issues had its premiere at the Laurie Beechman Theater on May 10th, and the venue was packed with audience members who screamed for Daniel, cheered for Audrey, and served them up with a standing ovation when the eighty-minute evening came to its conclusion. It was a festive night of frippery and frivolity, and it was exactly what you would have thought it would be. This is camp cabaret, and with a title like Mommy Issues, and a mother-son team like The Landers, every single person who put their bumm in a seat, luv, knew what they were going to see. This is very niche cabaret, and it is going to play really well in places where audiences gather to see campy, gay, flamboyant cabaret shows. It is going to go over very well in Provincetown, Fire Island, Palm Springs, NYC, and Hollywood, where people appreciate an actress with Audrey Landers ’ CV, an entertainer with Daniel Landers’ flair, and cabaret shows made up of sequins, boas, and a mother and child whose advertising declares that cabaret is cheaper than therapy. Dudes. HOW can you NOT want to see THAT show?!

Mommy Issues is a brand-new outing for the Landers, and it is charming, delightful, silly, and frivolous, thoroughly enjoyable, and full of promise. It has some first-timer issues that Daniel and Audrey are likely to smooth out as they go along, but the show has merit, and it has an audience. First of all, the Landers overflow with chemistry (that’s important, for not all family members actually have chemistry onstage), and they love to play together; that much is clear. They also have talent, another important factor when creating a cabaret show. Delicious Daniel doesn’t have his mother’s vocal training, but he has a pleasing voice, and he can sing songs in the same key as Audrey, which serves their duets well. Awesome Audrey’s voice is as strong and as beautiful as it ever was, and she has the presence of a Las Vegas headliner. Between the two of them, they acquit themselves nicely of their musical material in a program that resembles the television variety specials of Audrey’s era. There is an opening that consists of a comedy sketch, there is some duet action and more sketch comedy, then there are segments when each performer yields the proceedings to their partner for three (ish) solo numbers. The offstage partner runs back on now and then to remind the audience that this is a duo show, and there is a big finish. Eh, voila! Eighties variety show formula executed to satisfying results. The area in their formula where the Landers need to focus a little bit of work is their script (not the formula, which is effective, the actual script itself). Their opening sketch isn’t serving them to their best advantage, and if they were to return to the drawing board with their director (do they have a director? There is none credited, and if they don’t have one, getting one would take some of the onus off of them) and freshen up the opening, they could polish off some of the rough edges there. The other place they could polish things up is in their individual solo sets, and it goes (again) back to their script. Both Audrey and Daniel have good solo sets in the show, his involving his own compositions, hers involving some musical theater material, but when each of the Landers is not actively engaged in the art of singing, there is an element of rambling to their dialogue. The equation is simple: write it down, tighten it up, and use it as a framework, so that you don’t ramble. With these two script matters addressed, Audrey and Daniel have a lovely property on their hands - delectable and humorous, even heartwarming, amidst all the campery, because it is clear to see how much they adore one another. Every gay boy who is also a Mama’s boy wishes he could do a club act with his glamorous, elegant, and talented Mama, and every gorgeous, glitzy glamazon with a son who loves her wardrobe as much as she does wants to get into the sandbox with her little boy. Mommy Issues is a dream come true for Daniel and Audrey and for the audiences who crave their brand of entertainment.

Musically speaking, Mommy Issues is chock-a-block with songs audiences will recognize joyfully from the pop radio of the Sixties (“Shop Around), the Eighties (“You Give Love A Bad Name”), the Nineties (“Genie in a Bottle”), the Noughties (“Dancing on my Own”), and from the Great American Songbook, like “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Stormy Weather,” and “Over the Rainbow,” with Daniel landing high marks for a torchy ballad of how own composition, “Sooner or Later,” while Audrey landed every performance aspect of “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered,” which she executed in a manner that made the mind wonder what she would have been like as Vera Prentiss Simpson on the legitimate musical theater stage. Especially significant at the May 10th performance was a performance of “Dance 10, Looks 3” - this writer has been informed that this was the first time Ms. Landers has sung her A Chorus Line solo live. The audience was there for it, as Audrey Landers performed Valerie Clark ’s monologue from the film before launching into the Hamlisch/Kleban classic with a slight assist from her doting son, the effect of which this writer wouldn’t spoil for the world. That is a secret to be shared between Audrey, Daniel, and the audiences in the seats out front. The familial twosome had fine backing from Musical Director Steven Silverstein throughout the playful musical evening. Future audience members of MOMMY ISSUES should have a grand and gleeful time at the musical comedy cabaret, and Mommy Landers and her bouncing baby boy should have a swell time bringing their mother-son act to crowds of people just looking to get out from behind their screens and doomscrolling and into the glittering nightclub air where people lap up the drinks and the laughs, and enjoy a good time, which is truly something that we all need right now. Audrey and Daniel, welcome to the cabaret! We’ve been waiting for you.

Find great shows on the Laurie Beechman website HERE.

Visit the Audrey Landers website HERE and the Daniel Landers Instagram HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/cabaret/article/Review-Audrey-Landers-Daniel-Landers-Debut-MOMMY-ISSUES-at-The-Laurie-Beechman-Theatre-20260521)._