Yeller Tooth
The Living Room Series
TheaterWorks
Hartford
March 27th, 2026
The Living Room series of concerts returned to its original stomping grounds of TheaterWorks in Hartford for its latest session, featuring Sahar Milani and Cameron Scoggins together as the duo Yeller Tooth. In addition to being musicians, both Milani and Scoggins are actors. Milani starred in TheaterWorks’ production of English last year.
I respect Milani’s dedication to performing. She informed the audience that she was recovering from feeling ill, and didn’t have the energy to both sing and play an instrument, leaving the accompaniment to her husband. The two took the evening in stride. Milani’s voice threatened to give out at one point, but she resolved to finish the set, and made it through the entire hour.
Milani did a fine job vocally, especially for her condition. She and Scoggins have a unique dynamic, where their voices, while distinct and strong on their own, mingle into a single sound that produces contrasting harmonies, as if one person is singing two parts. The husband and wife duo have been performing together for years, and have found a way to make their understated sound work and expand into something bigger, as Scoggins played both the guitar and banjo to accentuate their singing.
What I found disappointing about the show was the professionalism. Performing while sick (and supporting a sick partner and co-performer) is no easy task. Lapses and mistakes should be forgiven under such circumstances. But it was the banter between songs that made me less forgiving. Milani and Scoggins joked about forgetting words and music at other performances as well.
Everyone makes mistakes, but the number of mistakes I saw last night was noteworthy. Again, these could be explained away by a tough night, if not for the performer’s admission that this is a recurring issue.
Yeller Tooth did themselves no favors either by drawing attention to the gaffes, either with gagging sounds or with knowing looks to each other that also communicated to the audience. In every performance I’ve been in, the advice has been the same: Don’t acknowledge mistakes, because the audience often can’t tell. Not only did those acknowledgements draw attention to the error, but they broke the semi-trance that musical performances can put listeners under.
Ultimately, the evening felt like I was mismatched for it. I get that the Living Room series is supposed to be a more laid-back style of performance, but that sense of relaxation is supposed to describe the atmosphere. Performers and the audience both have strict expectations to meet regardless of the mood or venue. The audience is expected to be attentive, polite. It is expected to avoid disrupting the show. Performers are expected to put on a show worthy of the time and money of the audience.
Yeller Tooth felt like they were performing for family and friends. That especially felt like the case as the performers shouted out people in the audience, and other audience members enthusiastically engaged with them. There was a sense of familiarity and comfort in the room.
Except that it was a performance that strangers could pay to see too. Perhaps if I knew Milani and Scoggins better, or if I’d seen Milani’s acting performance and had some level of familiarity with her, I would have found the idiosyncrasies of the Living Room concert endearing. As a stranger, I was disappointed. Perhaps a different night would yield a different result, but given Yeller Tooth’s own words, I’m not so sure.
NEXT
Jamil goes to check out another concert in Bloomfield.
