In the entertainment biz, a triple threat is generally defined as someone who can sing, dance and act. Such performers are not rare—consider Fred Astaire, Hugh Jackman, Marilyn Monroe, or Jennifer Lopez, for instance. In fact the survival of Broadway and, here in the UK, the West End depends upon churning out entertainers with these three strings to their bows.
But how many of these supposed all-rounders could also keep an audience laughing—and how many of those could also write their own gags? Enter Elise Roth, a vintage-styled vixen who idolizes Judy Garland and is a long way along the Yellow Brick Road towards being just as talented.
Her website is humbly titled “Elise Roth, Vocalist,” even though she offers much more than vocals. Born in the US, Elise spent most of her childhood in England before returning to the States for college (she studied musicology at Boston University). Now she is back in Britain, recording and performing—as well as acting in hilarious web skits solo, alongside sock puppets and with similarly witty humans.
“My dad got a job as a foreign correspondent in London when I was four,” she explained. “We were just meant to be here for a few years—it turned out to be 14 years.” Elise grew up loving musical theater, her childhood soundtrack; Sondheim, Berlin, and Porter. Once, her journalist dad interviewed “one of the last Andrews Sisters
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