A few weeks ago I participated in a video clip to be played during Kelly Clinton-Holmes’ shows at Suncoast Showroom tonight and Sunday. This recorded shtick was a satirical interview conducted by Tricia McCrone and I, in a fake “Kats With The Dish” segment, with Clinton performing a fully costumed Joan Rivers impression.
The setup took a while, with the three of us sitting as lights and microphones were properly positioned. We talked casually as the preparations were completed. When we were all shtick-ready, I introduced Clinton-as-Rivers, turning to my left to welcome our guest.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Clinton-Holmes said, erupting in her role as Rivers, and launching a five-minute routine in which the woman who had previously sat next to us totally vanished. I felt startled, though I knew what was coming, even flinching a bit as Clinton-Holmes totally inhabited the character. It was hard not to laugh as Clinton-Holmes, as Rivers, talked of sleeping with Joe Pesci, shouting, “He’s so small – he went up on me!” I lost him in the sheets!"
Well then.
Clinton-Holmes is bringing Rivers and a wide variety of her spot-on impressions and even some original material to the Suncoast in her show, “Freckled For Life,” an autobiographical music and comedy showcase for a woman who has earned a deserved reputation as one of the city’s great stage talents.
“It’s a journey through my crazy life, doing all the things I love to do,” says Clinton-Holmes, married to the great Clint Holmes. She is the pride of Clark High School and was originally a backup singer for Wayne Newton. Suitably, she performs a wickedly funny impression of the Wayner, who has long said Clinton-Holmes deserves her own sitcom.
Clinton-Holmes has long been the front woman for a pair of showcases in Vegas ideally tailored for capacity to sing and unleash off-the-cuff humor. She’s been the entertainment director at Stirling Club at Turnberry Place for eight years, and for a little longer than that has organized and presented the open-mic nights on Mondays at Bootlegger Bistro.
But Clinton-Holmes’ crazy life has not led to a residency at any Vegas showroom, not yet at least. Five years ago she headlined for a weekend at Suncoast, but there is a harder focus today on nailing down some sort of extended gig in Vegas now that the righteously swingin’ Stirling Club at Turnberry Place is about to close. That’s Clinton-Holmes’ full-time job, and the lounge and its accompanying restaurant, spa and tennis courts are being shut down May 18.
Clinton-Holmes will play her next, and last, Stirling Club gig on the night the members-only haunt locks the doors. She has been working toward the next phase of her life, with the one-woman show at the center, and has enlisted a top backing band of music director Michael Clark (who plays piano and keys), guitarist John Wedemeyer (one of the city’s busiest musicians), percussionist Adam Shendal (late of Gordie Brown’s band and also a former Newton band member) and bassist Keith Nelson (who has played with the Lon Bronson All-Star Band and also joined Holmes for his inspired debut at Cabaret Jazz at the Smith Center on April 6-7).
Longtime Holmes friend and music director Bill Fayne will contribute to the show in a guest appearance.
After finishing at the Suncoast, on May 7, 9, 10 and 11, Clinton-Holmes is taking the show back to New York’s Metropolitan Room, where both she and her husband have earned acclaim from characteristically discriminate New York audiences (Clint closes another successful run at Café Carlyle on Saturday night and will be back in town for Sunday’s show at Suncoast).
Clinton-Holmes has been working tirelessly to make the Suncoast show a vaulting point to her post-Stirling Club career (shows are 7:30 p.m.; tickets are still available starting at $15.95 at the Suncoast website). She sounds a little nervous, but that sensation subsides when she takes the stage.
“It’s so funny. I once talked to a mentor of mine, an entertainment director, when I was 19. I told him I was always so nervous when I go on, I’d get so scared, my nerves would be jumping,” she recalled, “and he said, ‘KC, one day you’ll be more comfortable up there than you are anywhere.’ And that’s how it is for me now.”
Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWithTheDish.
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