Nikki Blonsky, Betty Buckley

Feinstein’s at Loews Regency (Blonsky)
Birdland (Buckley)

It is inspiriting to see 19-year-old Nikki Blonsky take over the podium at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency for a solo nightclub performance and carry herself with the assurance and acumen of someone much older.

Nikki, who, you will recall, starred as Tracy Turnblad in the movie version of Hairspray, has since appeared in another film, Harold, and the Lifetime TV movie Queen-Sized. And queen-sized she certainly is—call it chubby, corpulent, or whatever—in defiance of America’s obsession with slimness.

But her voice, too, is sizable, and she puts it to good use in a well-chosen eclectic program, whose songs—along with an expectable few from Hairspray—range from Cole Porter to Frank Wildhorn, Willie Nelson to Stephen Sondheim, and include the “Habanera” from Carmen in a French not immediately recognizable as such.

She pays due tribute to singers who have inspired her and whose songs she is covering; they comprise Bonnie Raitt, Cher, Melissa Etheridge, Mama Cass, and Linda Eder channeling Streisand’s “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” Where deep feeling and rich experience is called for, the teenager, of course, falls short, as she does, for example, in Porter’s “So in Love,” and a couple of others. But, surprisingly for such a young one, she is creditable in Mrs. Lovett’s “By the Sea,” while also admiringly referencing its originator, Angela Lansbury.

This brings us to the problem of patter, which any singer must interpolate between songs. All Ms. Blonsky can talk about is her musical experiences at Great Neck Village School and Great Neck South High School, in shows she has been in or roles she unsuccessfully auditioned for. We also get fulsome dedications to a beloved grandmother (“Crazy”) and a recently deceased uncle who used to be the life of the party (Andrew Lippa’s “Life of the Party”). There are not many fascinating stories to relate from a career that began last year.

Especially disconcerting is the onstage presence of Nikki’s singing teacher, Patti Dunham, as music director and backup singer, strangely out of place as she smiles, sways and nods, and directs the band (Gary Haberman, piano, synthesizer and vocals; Mike Hall, bass; Ian Petillo, drums) that pays scant attention to her sporadic direction.

The show is called “Coming Home,” referring to the return to New York after concertizing “throughout the states and abroad,” which sounds a trifle too grand. Nevertheless, we should watch Nikki Blonsky as she navigates additional challenges, while also, I hope, shedding a few superfluous pounds.

At the other end of the scale from youthful enthusiasm comes seasoned professionalism and mature life experience in the person of Betty Buckley, currently at Birdland and a frequent and welcome visitor to these parts.

Personally, I prefer Ms. Buckley onstage in musicals, or singing songs from them, in several of which she has winningly acted. Here she sassily announces that none of her songs is from a musical. Some of them are fairly obscure items she regularly (perhaps too regularly) performs in her concerts. Now she is backed up by Clifford Carter on piano and three other able musicians, although the balance between voice and instruments is not always propitious to her.

Still, when it comes to emotional immersion and consummate musicianship, Ms. Buckley has few equals, and no evening spent with her is wasted time. I enjoyed especially items by Abbey Lincoln and Tom Waits, and such standards as “How Deep Is the Ocean” and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” although “Autumn Leaves” and a couple of Antonio Carlos Jobim numbers do not, in my view, profit from Kenny Werner’s arrangements.

Nevertheless, savvy such as Betty Buckley’s should not go unsavored, and the portraits of the many past great incumbents on Birdland’s walls seemed to smile their approval at this their time-tested equal. So too, I wager, will you.