If only we could hear Norma Desmond rise up and sing: “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend, that little tart Betty Schaefer, was hot like me?” That does not happen in Nicole Scherzinger’s current run of shows, which included a diverting stop Thursday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown L.A.
The show tunes stayed in their corner, and the Pussycat Dolls oldies stayed in theirs. It was a show with a slightly split personality, with musical theater numbers dominating the first three-quarters and the flashy pop performed by her ex-girl-group taking over the last stretch. But it didn’t feel like an impossibly wide chasm.
Even as Scherzinger sang two bravura songs from the stage musical that brought her back into the limelight in a big way, *Sunset Blvd.*, you were reminded that the Broadway/West End show was rejiggered somewhat when she was starring in it. Gloria Swanson became a very distant memory, and you had to think of Norma Desmond not as a hag but as a woman of a certain age who is very much H-O-T-T-O-G-O. And it worked.
Meanwhile, there’s the F.O.M.O. that the L.A. theater community has suffered from by not getting a local transfer of Scherzinger’s run in *Sunset* on Broadway. Of course, many Angelenos made their way east to catch her in that Tony-winning turn in late 2024 and early 2025.
“You were everything in *Sunset*!” shouted the man in front of me, which is exactly the right thing to shout at a diva performance where everyone is just a little too mature to call out anything about mothering. So the full house was probably made up of about one-third jet-setters who already knew how spectacularly her “With One Look” would go, and two-thirds less-privileged locals who until now had only been able to guess it.
As the *Sunset* segment unfolded in the middle of her concert’s second act (the show that is “what’s gotten me here today,” as she told the audience), “With One Look” was really just the warm-up. The number that followed, “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” was the money song, one redolent of Barbra Streisand’s own cover of the Andrew Lloyd Webber neo-classic.
Throughout it, I sensed a few people around me eager for the song to end — not because they wanted Scherzinger to stop singing, but because they were jittery on the edge of their seats, barely able to hold off jumping up for the inevitable standing ovation. I felt their twitchiness.
Not long after that peak came gown-clad classiness: the Pussycat Dolls’ “Buttons,” and the unveiling of a slinky, button-less catsuit to match. Because why not? Scherzinger clearly is favoring her stage-actress era nowadays, but she’s still got the goods to indulge in some throwback choreography—or cardio—from back in the day.
This isn’t a full tour for the singer, but the last of three shows taking place in some of the world’s most storied venues: the Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall, and now (the day after she was honored at Variety’s Power of Women L.A. event) Disney Hall. It’s easy to imagine her taking it further on the road, if she doesn’t book another theater gig, or doing a residency.
Would it draw a wider split of fans, in other cities, who might be attracted only for the Dolls stuff or only for a night of standards? Possibly. But she would likely leave everyone ultimately pleased, either way.
Thursday’s show announced its primary intentions right at the start, with Scherzinger delivering a faithful rendition of “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” That’s a bold way for a singer who hasn’t been known primarily for theater to start off—maybe too bold—declaring that Streisand’s turf is her terra firma, too.
Her version was terrific for what it was, but not an especially imaginative or reinvented pick. From there, she got a little looser with the perennial Halloween/R&B favorite “I Put a Spell on You,” offering good growliness.
“Diamonds Are Forever” was a great choice of movie song to include—Variety previously declared it the best Bond theme of all time—and it was wise that she paid proper homage to the originator, Shirley Bassey. The issue, however, remains how difficult it is to out-Bassey Bassey. (At least Scherzinger is a dozen times more capable of nailing it than the poorly cast Doja Cat at this year’s Oscars.)
Finally, Scherzinger arrived at the first song truly associated with her, preceded by some chatty banter to set it up: “Y’all look so good, I think I might ‘stickwitu’ forever. That reminds me of a song.” Hey, us too.
The diversion to Pussycat Dolls territory was momentary—a teaser for the show’s finale. But there was something about it that seemed to put her on a surer footing, even as she returned to stage and film perennials.
A medley of Sondheim’s “Losing My Mind” and “Not a Day Goes By,” which have become conjoined in the interpreter mindset somewhere around the turn of the century, offered a good teaser for the mind-losing possibilities of the *Sunset* material to come later.
For her pre-intermission closer, Scherzinger tackled *Cabaret’s* greatest number, “Maybe This Time”—the patron saint of songs for losers everywhere. She wouldn’t fit into a modern *Cabaret* production where the leading lady must play it like an unpracticed waif, but she would have killed the role in the days when everyone aimed to do it as skillfully as Liza Minnelli.
At the end, she sacrificed emotion for a moment of camp, but that was okay. Going back to the nightstand where she kept her water bottle and Kleenex, Scherzinger crouched down in an odd way—was she working off a cramp?—then reemerged holding something behind her back.
“Maybe this time,” she belted, pausing for effect. Out came her two biggest trophies, in either hand. “I’ll win!” She referred to them as her friends “Laurence and Antoinette,” as in, of course, an Olivier and a Tony.
### Intermission Thoughts
Either you love this kind of blowsy, broad (in every sense) old-school showbiz stuff—lengthy patter interludes included—or you don’t. Anyone who doesn’t share the same nostalgic hankering for veteran actresses holding court with one-woman shows might not be blamed for opting out.
But Scherzinger is operating out of a great tradition with this stuff, and there aren’t many others of her generation filling the void, at least with her profile coming from the pop side and the chops to work it on the theater side.
She feels more born to this than she was to being a 2010s pop tart—although she was a good enough actress to pull that off, too. Being an Interscope sex bomb definitely did not allow her to casually walk around the stage making slightly off-color remarks between showing off her coloratura prowess.
All of which is to say: if this is a prelude to her doing shows like this indefinitely, and working up to putting “I’m Still Here” into her repertoire 20 years from now, some of us will be there for it.
“The ladies are looking absolutely divine,” Scherzinger told the audience. “A lot of hot men in the house tonight.” Here’s betting she says that to all the Carnegie and Royal Albert Hall boys. Or maybe not.
“Looks like all the WeHos showed up,” she added, getting a big enough roar to drown out whatever else she said subsequently. She did not shy away from elbow-nudging humor.
Talking of her heritage, she described herself as “Hawaiian, Filipino, Spanish, Chinese, Polish. Irish 2%. I also have some English in me, too. His name is Thom.”
Her fiancé, Thom Evans, came up again when she sang the one new, original song of the evening, the pop-R&B vamp “Bullshit”:
“This is my idea of a love song. It’s about waiting for that special someone to, how do you say it, get it together (and) put a ring on it. You catch my drift?”
Sample lyric: “Wake your ass up before I up and leave.”
Flashing a ring after the song was over, she said, “Needless to say, he got the message.”
Scherzinger also did not ignore the folks in the balcony behind her, although she meant to at times. “You’ve got the best seats in the house!” she informed them early on.
Much later, toward the end of the second of three acts, she got verklempt as she started talking about Prince, whom she described as “a big part of who I am; he was my mentor, my big brother.”
Retreating back to the nightstand, she took a moment to turn her back to the audience and wipe her nose. “Thank God for these tissues.” Then she remembered there was a whole separate audience behind the stage.
“Oh great, you guys are here; I’d forgotten that. Give it up for my surprise party back there.”
“Purple Rain” was her main nod to mainstream pop-rock tastes, and to the one who makes her cry.
The *La Cage aux Folles*/Jerry Herman/Gloria Gaynor anthem “I Am What I Am” was her main shout-out to the WeHos, as she put it.
As for the pure Broadway demographic in the crowd, although she mostly stuck to musical theater’s greatest hits, it was a delight when, to kick off the final act, she brought out the cheeky *Drowsy Chaperone* number “Show Off,” which is exactly what she intended to do for the finale.
She appeared for this last bit in what almost looked like an elegant bedroom dressing gown, sipping tea (“Let me put this down before I spill too much,” she said), which eventually showed some leg — and then was abandoned altogether to show a lot more than that, as the show settled into its full-Pussycat end run.
With the final Pussycat Dolls medley, Scherzinger hoofed it up in black lace and heels, somehow looking about a foot taller than her 5’5″ frame. It was all about the life of a showgirl. That’s what would truly draw ’em in, probably, if she ever deigned to do this as a Vegas residency.
But what most of this Disney Hall audience will remember most is that two-song *Sunset Blvd.* bit, where Norma came alive on West Coast home turf—minus the Broadway stage blood.
Without Jamie Lloyd’s cameras there to do close-ups, Scherzinger played the anti-heroine a little less for obsessive mania and more for pure Barbra-style butter.
Norma Desmond doesn’t really have to be portrayed as a killer when, from this murderously good revue, we already understand that Nicole Scherzinger is one.
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### Setlist for Nicole Scherzinger at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles — Oct. 30, 2025:
**Act 1:**
– Don’t Rain on My Parade
– I Put a Spell on You
– Diamonds Are Forever
– Stickwitu
– You Raise Me Up / Reflection (medley)
– Losing My Mind / Not a Day Goes By (medley)
– Maybe This Time
**Act 2:**
– I Am What I Am
– Bullshit
– With One Look
– As If We Never Said Goodbye
– Purple Rain
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Nicole Scherzinger’s show proved to be a fascinating blend of Broadway bravura and pop flashiness, showcasing her evolution from pop star to leading lady with admirable ease and undeniable talent. Whether you’re a theater buff, a Pussycat Dolls fan, or both, this performance had something that would leave you happily entertained.
https://variety.com/2025/music/concert-reviews/nicole-scherzinger-concert-review-walt-disney-hall-1236567669/
