Nicole Scherzinger Norma-lizes a Mix of ‘Sunset Blvd.’ Bravura and Pussycat Doll Playtime in Commanding Turn at Disney Hall: Concert Review

If only we could hear Norma Desmond rise up and sing: Don’t cha wish your girflriend, 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 perpetrated 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 that Broadway/West End show was rejiggered some when she was starring in it so that Gloria Swanson was a very distant memory, and so that you had to think of Norma Desmond not as a hag but as being 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 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 ’25. “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, though. The number that followed, “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” was the money song, the one that seemed redolent of Barbra Streisand’s own cover of the Andrew Lloyd Webber neo-classic. Throughout it, I sensed a few of the people around me who seemed eager for the song to end — not because they really wanted Scherzinger to stop singing, but because they were literally jittery on the edge of their seats, barely able to hold off jumping up for the inevitable standing ovation. I felt their twitchiness. And not so very long after that peak, 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 choreo, 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 to come 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 certainly announced its primary intentions right at the start, with Scherzinger doing 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 being in the theater arena that long to start off with — maybe too bold, in 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,” giving good growliness. “Diamonds Are Forever” was a great choice of movie song to include (Variety having previously declared it the best Bond theme of all time), and it was wise that she paid proper homage to the originator, but the issue remains of how difficult it is to out-Bassey Shirley Bassey. (At least she is a dozen times more capable of nailing it than poor, miscast Doja Cat at this year’s Oscars.) Finally Scherzinger arrived at the first song truly associated with her, with some chan-toozy 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 hit territory was only a momentary one for the moment, veritably a trailer 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 the stage and film perennials. A medley of Sondheim’s “Losing My Mind” and “Not a Day Goes By,” which seem to 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. And then, 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 has to play it like an unpracticed waif, but she sure would have killed the role in the day when everyone looked to do it as skillfully as Liza. At the end, she sacrificed emotion for a moment of camp, but that was okay. Going back to the sort of nightstand where she kept her water bottle and Kleenex, Scherzinger crouched down in an odd way — was she working off a cramp? — and then reemerged holding something behind her back. “Maybe this time,” she belted, pausing for effect… out come 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 all the senses), old-school show-biz-stuff — lengthy patter interludes included — or you don’t. Anyone who doesn’t hold 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 a lot of 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 in-between showing off 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 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 fiance, Thom Evans, came up for referencing 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 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 sop 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 sop 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 appeared to be 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 — hoofing it up in black lace and heels, somehow looking about a foot taller than her 5’5" frame — 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 just 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. Setlist for Nicole Scherzinger at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Oct. 30, 2025: Don’t Rain on My ParadeI Put a Spell on YouDiamonds Are ForeverStickwituYou Raise Me Up/ReflectionLosing My Mind/Not a Day Goes ByMaybe This Time Set 2:I Am What I AmBullshitWith One LookAs If We Never Said GoodbyePurple Rain Set 3:Show OffButtonsWhen I Grow UpDon’t ChaDon’t Hold Your Breath