[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts 2026 Hollywood Fringe Festival review of Tracey Yarad’s one-woman musical memoir, All These Pretty Things, directed by David Deblinger.
Well, I have seen quite a few one-woman show musicals in my time. Most of them lovely and funny and heartfelt. But All These Pretty Things really crosses over into what I would say is a performance so brilliant it seems improvised, or as if the show is not a show at all but Tracey Yarad using her anecdotes and her incredible voice and songwriting skills in her own front room to entertain her girlfriends with the story of the life and death of her marriage. You know when someone is really good because it feels effortless. And Tracey Yarad is really really good.
A brief synopsis of the story is this. Tracy and her husband travel the world with their musical act, and over the many years on the road they save up for their first house in Australia. A cute and slightly run-down cottage, they nonetheless work like crazy fixing it up and start a music school, which has long been their dream. Everything seems perfect until one of their young students moves in, turns 18 and off goes Tracey’s husband with her and the world crashes down around her ears.
Try and make a musical solo show out of that! I dare you!
Well, Tracey does, mostly because she is Australian, and I have cousins there, so I’m allowed to say that.
It’s unashamedly bawdy and hilarious and absolutely bloody brilliant! Tracey herself is the epitome of class, I might add. But in Australia class is served with a side of sod off, so the show does not suffer fools gladly. But that is what makes it all the more wonderful. Tracey spends a lot of the show praising her ex, before we know what happened. His work ethic, his decency, his commitment to their collective dream of owning their first home. What he did was a huge surprise to her, even though in retrospect she felt she should have known something was up…no pun intended. And even though she fell apart, she really only did so knowing that everything about him must have been a lie for so long and she still came out of it with her honor and her mind intact and with all the strength to start again. And start again she did, in New York. So f*ck him!
Stories about broken hearts are not uncommon in the world of solo shows. But this one has Tracey Yarad.
Songstress extraordinaire, phenomenal vocals, hilarious and uplifting energy, and a story that will curl your toes and have you looking a bit sideways, if you know what I mean.
I love love loved All These Pretty Things. What an ingenious and victorious way of cleansing your self of something so terrible. Success, as they say, is the best revenge!!