New England Entertainment Digest
Volume 21, number 2
February 2000 - Cover headline article.
Old Love, New Love -
An Inspiring Evening of Cabaret
with Will McMillan
Start the new year with a new show - Old Love, New Love. Will McMillan sings from the heart, and pianist/composer Steve Sweeting is an incredible improviser. Together they will stretch out on old standards by Kern, Porter and the Gershwins, mixed with new stuff by Sondheim, Bucchino and Brourman - not to mention some originals.

In 1999, McMillan was one of thirty-seven performers chosen nationally to be a fellow at the O'Neill Theater Center's 10th Cabaret Symposium. His most recent solo shows, Connected and I'm Still Here, sold out in May and August. He and Sweeting will be releasing a CD of jazz standards later this year.

In the fall of 1998, McMillan was featured in the Toast of the Town Cabaret benefit Gala, singing with composer/songwriter Steve Schalchlin. He has also fronted the pop/rock bands Cue and Q-set, has performed with the Adult Children of Heterosexuals, and has written original music in a folk duo, Jon & Will.

In his youth, McMillan appeared in commercials, plays and made-for-TV movies, including The Four of Us with Barbara Feldon, Bound for Freedom with Fred Gwynne and Goldenrod with Tony Lo Bianco. He was also a standby in the original production of Pippin on Broadway, which according to NEED's Beverly Creasey is no surprise. "He sings a song about being "Extraordinary," and he is. There aren't enough superlatives, as the song says, to give McMillan his due. He can lift lovely songs out of musicals like The Secret Garden and Assassins and give them new life...and new (much deeper) meaning. They resonate off the walls and carom around the room like laser beams."

McMillan currently performs with Lillian Rozin in The Will & Lil Show, an ongoing frolic of a serious nature. As Jules Becker once reviewed for NEED, "There's a remarkable joy and limitless fervor in [Will's] renditions that make even the most celebrated standards and over-recorded favorites fresh once again," which is just what he will do on Wednesday, February 9, when he appears in Old Love, New Love - An Inspiring Evening of Cabaret at Scullers Jazz Club, 400 Soldier's Field Road at 8:00pm. Tickets are $10, and are available by calling (617) 562-4111, or thru Ticketmaster at (617/508) 931-2000.