Comedy, confession, and songwriting collide in singer/songwriter Audrey Hobert’s performance at New York City’s famed Cherry Lane Theatre.

Audrey Hobert | Live From Cherry Lane Theatre

Everyone has those YouTube videos they return to again and again.

Akin to a warm blanket on a cold day, they carry a kind of nostalgic comfort. The best ones blur the distance, making you feel like you are right there in the room. If you’re an Atwood reader, we imagine those revisited videos tend to lean towards music. Lucky for all of us, Cherry Lane Theatre has launched its own YouTube channel, offering full sets from artists like Brandi Carlile, Lizzy McAlpine, and more.

For its reopening week, Audrey Hobert, fresh off the heels of her debut album Who’s the Clown?‘s release, sells out the theatre. They captured it for us so we can return to it on those slow mornings and perhaps a few late nights where we’re not quite ready for sleep.

Hobert’s performance feels like a one-woman play, a standup act, and an intimate singer songwriter show all in one, made even more electric in the historic Cherry Lane Theatre. She moves effortlessly between deeply personal storytelling and perfectly timed comedic quips, creating a rhythm that pulls you in and keeps you there. She has a way of making a full room feel like a one-on-one conversation, like you’re sitting with your best friend as she lets you in on everything. This is Audrey Hobert at the Cherry Lane Theatre.

She starts with a pluck of the guitar diving straight into crystal clear vocals in “I Like To Touch People.” It’s the kind of opening that immediately quiets a room while pulling everyone closer. She smiles towards the crowd as she effortlessly moves through the opening number. The crowd is excited. The vibe is intimate. And the woman at the helm is visibly happy to be there.

When the opening song comes to a close, Hobert immediately falls into an easy banter.

She talks about visiting the theatre months ago and thinking how cool it would be to play there, never actually believing it would happen. She points out the beautiful brick behind her, “check out this fu**ing brick behind me,” laughing about how they spent the afternoon choosing the exact lighting to highlight it. It’s half standup, half singer/songwriter, and Hobert is completely in her element.

She transitions into the next song, “Bowling Alley” explaining she wanted to write about being “the naked neighbor.” As she describes the process of writing the song she pairs it down into the most relatable and simple way. She explains, “You know when you don’t really want to go out, but it’s a Friday night so you go out to feel like a real person, only to get there and immediately want to go home.” The crowd erupts with laughter. It lands because everyone in the room has lived that exact feeling.

She begins singing “Bowling Alley” and you almost have to remind yourself that the charming comedian in front of you is also an insanely talented singer. The way Hobert moves up and down a scale with such effortless efficiency is insane. Her melodies are always moving and she hits every note with precision, never overworking it, just letting it land exactly where it should.

She ends and begins another segment of small talk. Someone in the audience raises their hand, and the way she so naturally fields a question is what makes her charm undeniable. The attendee asks if they should stand. Hobert laughs and says they can, but she will also demand some standing moments eventually. The energy in the room is palpable. People don’t want to sit. They want to match the energy of the songs, stand and sing as a passionate fan does, while also not disrupting the sanctity of the theatre.

She goes into “Chateau,” her “anti establishment” song that she lets us know her mom actually campaigned to be on the album.

She wasn’t sure at first, but her mom made her put it on. It’s interesting because people have latched onto it, and she’s ended up highlighting it throughout the release. Ricky Gourmet, who she made the album with, is a guitarist, and she wanted those rock guitars (rock guitars she made sure to state were her idea) to live in this song. It’s just her and the acoustic here, but she promises to bring the volume up, and she does. She lets it rip at the end and the audience sings along, filling in everything the production usually carries.

She shifts into the next song, taking us into a new story. She talks about having a crush on a guy who was emotionally unavailable, and how all consuming a crush can be. When it’s there, it’s all you can think about. Again, she has this way of stating things so specifically that are undeniably relatable. Life with a crush is embarrassing. She encompasses this with her next song, “Thirst Trap.” She sings these lines so quickly, which takes immense skill and precision. Breath work people spend years trying to perfect, she seems to have innately.

Stay up, and I pace around,
I pace around the room
Wake up, and I’m thinkin’ ’bout,
I’m thinkin’ ’bout you
Can’t read, or write, or do what I like to do, ooh
I spend my days 4/20 blazed
just thinkin’, “What’s he gonna do?”

She opens up more, talking about coming into her body and how this is the best she has ever looked, while still having those days where she looks in the mirror and doesn’t feel picked.

She reflects on childhood and school, growing up not feeling attractive, not feeling chosen. Her mom once told her, “Audrey, you deserve to be in every room you walk into just by being completely silent.” It lingers.

She goes into the next song, Phoebe, a track that holds all of that feeling at once, insecurity, admiration, identity, and the quiet hope of becoming.

Cause why else would you want me?
I think I’ve got a f**ked-up face
And that thought used to haunt me
‘Til I fell in its sweet embrace
Now I don’t sweat the acne
It’s a bitch, but it goes away
And who cares if I’m pretty?
I feel like I’m Phoebe

We’re nearing the close of the set. Hobert hasn’t lost the audience for even a second. I know this because I’m in the room, via Youtube. She dives into her time in New York. Relevant to the Cherry Lane setting. She tells the crowd how much she labored over this next song, how badly she wanted it to be perfect and how she wrote it hauled up in her brother’s New York apartment. She explains that when she finished writing it, she lit a cigarette out the window and watched fireworks over the city. A perfect New York City moment that she’s brought to life for us. She starts singing “Sex and the city” and it’s a blissfully magical moment of the set. She finishes and the crowd erupts. She is visibly happy, taking it in.

She stands for the first time, calling back to the earlier moment with the audience guiding them to do the same.

The acoustic guitar disappears and she exclaims, “Hit it.” The track to “Sue Me” floods the room as Hobert begins,

I knew you’d be at the party, drinking a coke and bacardi

She performs with them, not at them, until the last note. The crowd explodes. Then she stops and asks everyone to put their phones down so she can do it one more time. And they do. Even more present, even more alive, she runs it back. She moves into the crowd. It becomes what live music is supposed to be. Shared, chaotic, unified. They are all one. It’s magic. It’s a celebration. No phones should be mandatory.

Screaming the lyrics, “but f**king your ex is iconic,” with a room full of strangers somehow feels intimate, like everyone is in on the same secret.

Audrey Hobert has perfected her craft. What feels like casual thoughts and offhand conversations floating between songs are actually carefully constructed and deeply intentional. It takes skill to pull that off. She weaves in and out of these moments to build something larger than a setlist. From start to finish, you are in an experience, one that Hobert is guiding with precision. She is an artist. The show is art.

As part of Cherry Lane’s reopening and the launch of its new YouTube series, this performance feels even more significant.

A historic room opening its doors again, paired with an artist very clearly on the rise. It captures something fleeting. A moment where the room, the artist, and the audience all meet at exactly the right time.

The best part is that because it was Cherry Lane Theatre, this is truly a once in a lifetime, never going to happen again kind of show. Lucky for us, it’s been captured.

Enjoy it, and revisit it whenever you’d like!

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:: stream/purchase Who’s the Clown? here ::

:: connect with Audrey Hobert here ::

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Audrey Hobert | Live From Cherry Lane Theatre

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 © courtesy of the artist

:: Stream Audrey Hobert ::