‘A Night With Janis Joplin” @ Circle Theatre
Phots by Evan Michael Woods, and TayStan Photography
—Jan Farrington
Circle Theatre’s cabaret shows in the “Velvet Lounge” space of their lobby still feel new and shiny—and A Night With Janis Joplin gave us another evening to remember, what with finger-clicking divas strolling among the tables, and a fiery Janis at center stage.
To be honest, I can’t think of many iconic voices (and “Iconic” being the theme of Circle’s just-opening season, this opening-show pick feels very right) who are harder to get right than Joplin’s, the Pearl from Port Arthur, Texas who flamed up and flamed out in the scant five years of her professional career (1969-1970).
But singer/actor Brook Baker digs deep for her interpretation of Janis and succeeds well enough—getting the raspy highs and the gritty lows (and the oddly silky voice in between), even if we still know in our gut that Joplin is long gone, never coming back—and in the end a singer who can’t be entirely captured by anyone else as long as some of us are alive to remember. Still, good, gutsy work, Ms. B—you make us wish there’d been more songs and more years, but be grateful for what we had.
Show creator Randy Johnson, known for producing works that combine music and drama in innovative ways, has wisely fleshed out the story by surrounding Janis with the legendary Black women singers she loved and drew from. Four “Joplinaires” serve as a backup group, but also take the leads as other famous singers with song hits Joplin covered in her own style. As we sip drinks and finger-click at the singers strolling by us, we’re warmed by the feeling we’ve been dipped into an extraordinary era of American music.
Micaela Workman opens the show as Etta James (whose “At Last” is, nowadays, her most famous song) with I’m-your-girl urgency of “Tell Mama,” with Baker coming in as Janis. Alaid Adriana takes lead on The Chantel’s feisty love song “Maybe”—again, with Joplin comnig in on her even slower and more blues-y cover version.
Adriana flies high on the Gershwin’s “Summertime” (again, coverd by Joplin in a style George and Ira never thought of!), her rich voice hitting the cabaret’s low ceiling with a smack. Singer Janette Robinson is fine as Odetta (youngsters, look…her…up) in her pensive “Down on Me”—exploded into a rocker by Joplin— and also with earlier legend Bessie Smith’s bitter and beautiful “Nobody Knows You (When You’re Down and Out).”
And Tamya J. Simmons fills the room with her Aretha, her bright voice soaring on “Today I Sing the Blues” and “Spirit in the Dark,” an electric call-and-response number Aretha and Janis (as here!) once or twice sang together. In short, it’s a blues, R&B, classic show tunes, and rock ‘n’ roll feast—with Rodgers & Hart’s heartbreaking “Little Girl Blue” coming in sad and tender, led by Janette Robinson as Nina Simone.
Baker’s standouts as Joplin hit many of the classic (and they’re classics for good reason): “Cry, Baby”… ”Piece of My Heart”… “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)”… “Down on Me”… “Mercedes Benz”… and finally a pairing that sits at opposite ends of Joplin’s experience of love: first, the sad and sweet “Me and Bobby McGee,” followed by the shattering (Love Is Like a) “Ball and Chain.”
Five years. All she had in the music world’s hot center—and playwright Johnson’s script uses our awareness to give us a twinge: it includes some verbatim chat from Joplin at the mic, musing on what she’ll become in the years ahead.
There’s seating at tables, on couches, at bar stools and on the floor in the Velvet Lounge, and Circle’s creatives—director Ashley White, music director Vicky Nooe, the uber-imaginative scenics from Leah Mazur and costumes from Carly Hinson—give us a show full of memories and grateful hearts, that such a wealth of songs and artists should belong to us all.
WHEN: January 29-February 21, 2026
WHERE: Circle Theatre, 230 West Fourth St., Fort Worth
WEB: circletheatre.com
