Rosemary Clooney is one of the few popular singers of her era to successfully cross the bridges to jazz and acting. And as a song stylist, she was among the very best of the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

Her life story, which includes a tumultuous marriage, drug addiction and a successful journey through rehabilitation and mental health care, provides the grist for Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Story, now playing at The Meadow Brook Theatre.

Kim Rachelle Harris plays the crooner. Besides looking vaguely like Clooney through the decades covered in the show, her vocals are bright and heartfelt. She is not the singer that Clooney was, but this can be forgiven as Harris does a splendid job of conveying the layers of Clooney’s struggle–from being abandoned as a child by her mother, to her two marriages to philandering actor Jose Ferrer, her addiction to prescription pills and commitment to a mental health ward, and even her witness to Robert Kennedy’s assassination and subsequent breakdown.

The show is structured around Clooney’s conversation with her psychiatrist, played by Ron Williams. Williams does yeoman’s work, not only playing the doctor, but skating through every other character Clooney talks to or mentions including her Mother, Jose Ferrer, second husband Dante DiPaolo, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, her sister and more. He pulls this off deftly by donning a kerchief to play her Mother, a scarf/ascot to play Ferrer, a pipe to portray Crosby and so on.

The set design by Mike Duncan is dominated by a patchwork of Clooney posters, album covers and objects that relate to her life. Lighting design by Scott Ross works very well to transform the spaces on stage to fit the moment that Harris and William are re-enacting or portraying.

The accompanying music for Harris, directed by Jeffrey Campos, is played by a three piece band we can see stage right behind the players. Songs that come to life here are Clooney hits like “Hey There,” Straighten Up and Fly Right,” “Tenderly,” Come On-A-My House,” and more.

I’m not sure that 20-somethings and 30-somethings will embrace the story of Clooney, whose work falls a tad short of the franchises around Sinatra, Tony Bennett and others. But those with a warm memory of Clooney’s soulful singing and triumphant life battles will relish this night at The Meadow Brook.

Kim Rachelle Harris and Ron Williams bring one of the most interesting and classic lives of the American Songbook alive at The Meadow Brook for all to enjoy.

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