Stokes Mitchell shows his versatility

CAMBRIDGE -- The Sanders Theatre stage was quite bare on Friday night as Tony Award-winning baritone Brian Stokes Mitchell performed one of the few remaining shows in the Bank of America Celebrity Series. There was a baby grand piano, a stool, and a small table that held a glass of water and a mug of something, perhaps a throat - soothing honeyed tea. Hardly the props of voluptuous Broadway productions.

Instead of objects, Stokes Mitchell filled the space with personality as he recalled beloved Broadway and jazz standards and newer show tunes. His talents went beyond singing though. There was, of course, Stokes Mitchell the actor, lovingly pulling out the characters he has sung so many times. He played comedian, too, relaying life stories, resizing them for great comic effect. And there was Stokes Mitchell the pop idol. A smooth charmer throughout, the San Diego-raised singer flirted enough to fill Tom Jones' s lady-baiting shoes. He crooned directly to several female audience members during the set's final number -- a medley of romantic songs from the 1930s and '40s -- even stepping off the stage to further these feigned trysts.

Pianist Gerard D'Angelo, a Berklee College of Music graduate, was certainly no mere prop. The jazz and classical musician gently lapped in the background as Stokes Mitchell poured out his considerable baritone on opening number "Some Enchanted Evening," a song that delighted the audience to no end. But he stepped jauntily to the fore to toy with his master's voice and even take over with snappy , jazzy solos, excelling on a crisp "The Best Is Yet to Come," and cutting past Stokes Mitchell's tender treatment of "Wheels of a Dream" from "Ragtime," right to the song's desperate, sad heart.

On an impressive "This Nearly Was Mine," the slightly built Stokes Mitchell ditched the microphone to go "unplugged." Afterward he paid tribute to Sander s' beautiful acoustics. "Rooms are tuned by people," he declared after reeling off some of the figures who have graced its stage -- everyone from Martin Luther King to Hillary Clinton, he said. "This room has been well tuned," he purred. Beyond his terrific talent to interpret a song, that's Stokes Mitchell's appeal. A simple, warm human connection.