Review from the old Cleveland Press, I believe:

Cole Porter Evening Has Elegance, Style by Michael Ward

Somehow it is hard to imagine a cast of 10 and an on-stage orchestra of six constituting an intimate evening.

Yet that is the considerable feat that director Judith Haskell has achieved with "Cole" by Alan Strachan and Benny Green.

The show consists of songs by and reminiscences about that sophisticate of American song-writing Cole Porter, and it is presented with elegance, style and wit.

"Cole" opened at the Cleveland Play House's Euclid-77th St Theater last night and will continue through May 9 to provide the sort of music that it is oh so easy to love.

The whole thing is squeezed into a tasty package by actors and singers that very wisely specialize in what they can do best. Thus we are spared the embarrassment of vocalists thinking they are Hamlets and actors believing themselves to be Sinatras.

Time and again the audience is reminded, especially when Joe D. Lauck dances with a rag doll that he serenades with a hilarious "I Concentrate on You," that if the lyrics are good enough one need not be Caruso to present them engagingly.

Few wrote lyrics better that Porter: "They settled down to married life and solved the riddle of man and wife." He had sentiment ... he had humor ... and above all he had style.

Porter and his contemporary, Noel Coward, were remarkably similar, both having an affinity with the risque one moment and the romantic the next.

And both managed to be pretty suggestive at times. It is amazing looking backward from the 1980's, to comprehend that anyone could get away with the lyrics of "I'm a Gigilo" and "Love for Sale" in 1929 and 1930.

Porter did it. That goes to show that you can achieve a great deal if you do it with grace and a smile.

One of the secrets of this production's success is that Haskell has mixed her actors and singers well. Theresa Piteo and Cliff Bemis get the best opportunities to demonstrate their coval talents. But she is paired in a duet with actor Lauck.

Haskell can see the obvious advantage of this with songs that need to be sung. She is also aware that novelties like "The De-Lovely" can be hammed up nicely, so actors Sharon Bicknell and Wayne S. Turney are allowed to run rampant with them.

Musically one of the evening's highlights is Bemis' "Still of the Night," and the funniest is the "Laziest Gal in Town," about a lass who would be a nymphomaniac if only she had the energy.

In the sho'w dialog, I would have like to have heard more examples of Benny Green's spontaneous humor, but he and Strachan do have the good sense to retain that best of Porter songs, "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye," until almost the end.

That aside, David Gooding pays homage to Porter's usually impeccable words by downplaying his musical arrangements.

Unfortunately, Providence Hollander's tremendous vocal talents are seldom allowed to shine.