"I'm not single anymore, but the journey still happened," said Gross as the couple's 5-month-old kitten Vinnie scrambled across the hardwood floors in her Center City apartment. Creskoff beamed as Gross chattered. "But I'm in a new chapter, and I want my show to be reflective of it."
With a voice as clear as Karen Carpenter's and the looks of Anne Hathaway (full lips, to boot), Gross and her cabaret show have gained a local cult following, partly because - thanks to Sex and the City - it was hip to lament the singleton's challenges. Gross is also well known among the city's hard-to-distinguish publicist/freelance-writer crowd.
Sex & the Single Singer, performed about four times a year, is part comedy, part melancholy, and very autobiographical, considering that Gross wrote the show at 26 when she was fresh off a breakup. The play - which debuted at New Hope's then-hot spot Odette's - embodies the feeling of longing for Mr. Right. And like most single women, it is moody.
One minute Gross, who always performs with full red lips and a cocktail dress, is singing a down-in-the-dumps ballad; the next she's making fun of herself (one of her top 10 dating disasters was when her date said she reminded him of his mother). And then she's singing about hope. Who hasn't been there?
But the show is always changing, as Gross incorporates current affairs into the performances. In earlier shows, Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey's breakup was a topic. Now she pokes fun at dating during the recession. "No one is going to the fancy-shmancy pickup joints like Rouge," she says, laughing. "Instead they are cruising the aisles at Trader Joe's."
