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Watch Aladdin, Frozen and The Lion King at Disney Bryant Park Concert

August 3, 2018 Leave a comment

This week’s Broadway at Bryant Park was an all-Disney concert, with cast members from three Disney musicals on Broadway — Aladdin, Frozen and The Lion King — performing 10 songs from the shows, beginning with “Circle of Life” from The Lion King, and ending with “Let It Go” from Frozen, sung initially by Caissie Levy and Patti Murin, but then joined by the performers from all three shows.

Mayor Attaway and Telly Leung, from Aladdin. Photograph by Jonathan Mandell
Mayor Attaway and Telly Leung, from Aladdin. Photograph by Jonathan Mandell
Tshidi Manye, from the Lion King. Photo by Jonathan Mandell
Tshidi Manye, from the Lion King. Photo by Jonathan Mandell
Telly Leung. Photograph by Jonathan Mandell
Telly Leung. Photograph by Jonathan Mandell
Nicholas Ward from Frozen. Photograph by Jonathan Mandell
Nicholas Ward from Frozen. Photograph by Jonathan Mandell
Caissie Levy from Frozen. Photo by Steve Prue
Caissie Levy from Frozen. Photo by Steve Prue
Bradley Gibson from the Lion King
Bradley Gibson from the Lion King
Adrienne Walker and Bradley Gibson from The Lion King
Adrienne Walker and Bradley Gibson from The Lion King
"Let It Go" finale. Photo by Jonathan Mandell
“Let It Go” finale. Photo by Jonathan Mandell

Watch videos of six of the numbers below, and the complete set list.
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Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope Review: Savion Glover Brings Back 1970s Black Musical Revue

July 27, 2018 Leave a comment

There is a full-out gospel number, with swaying red choir robes, heavenly belting and devilishly deft dancing, in this last of this season’s Encores Off-Center concerts. But, as directed and choreographed by Savion Glover, whatever the talented cast is performing at any given moment —  whether the blues, soul, funk, jazz, rock, calypso or spoken-word poetry – “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope”  is entertaining enough to feel like a near-religious experience.  Or to put it the way I said it to myself during the very first song: “Holy Cow!”

Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope 1
Aisha de Haas
Aisha de Haas
CK Edwards et al
CK Edwards et al
Dayna Dantzler
Dayna Dantzler
Wayne Pretlow
Wayne Pretlow
Wayne Pretlow and ensemble
Wayne Pretlow and ensemble
Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope 5
James T. Lane, Rheaume Crenshaw
James T. Lane, Rheaume Crenshaw
Rheaume Censhaw and Dayna Dantzler
Rheaume Censhaw and Dayna Dantzler
Rheaume Crenshaw, Dayna Dantzler et al
Rheaume Crenshaw, Dayna Dantzler et al

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Gone Missing Review: Exploring Loss, Musically, Comically, and in Tribute to Michael Friedman

July 12, 2018 Leave a comment

Taylor Mac
Taylor Mac
Susan Blackwell
Susan Blackwell
Susan Blackwell Aysan Celik Deborah S. Craig,
Susan Blackwell Aysan Celik Deborah S. Craig,

One of the real people that The Civilians theater troupe interviewed to put together “Gone Missing” resists the assignment, which is to tell them stories about objects she has lost, such as car keys or rings. “You don’t want to hear about people?” the cast member portraying the old woman asks in the Encores Off-Center revival of the 2003 show. “Well, sorry honey, after you’ve lost as many people as I have, you don’t care about material things.”

Her comment has a particular resonance in this production, which is being presented only twice at City Center, once last night and one tonight. “Gone Missing” is 75 minutes of stories and songs about losing things and even a mock radio interview with a loss expert.  But the nine songs  were written by Michael Friedman. Friedman was the newly appointed director of Off-Center Encores concert series when he died last year, from AIDS, at the age of 41. It’s easy to see “Gone Missing” as a tribute concert.

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Review: Songs For A New World and Lucky That Way. How Jason Robert Brown Owes His Career to Yoko Ono

June 30, 2018 Leave a comment

Mykal Kilgore
Mykal Kilgore
Colin Donnell and Solea Pfeiffer
Colin Donnell and Solea Pfeiffer
Shoshana Bean as Mrs. Santa Claus
Shoshana Bean as Mrs. Santa Claus

Jason Robert Brown was in his twenties when he composed his first musical, “Songs For A New World,” its first production in New York lasting just 12 performances and changing people’s lives. The show was revisited at City Center this weekend in two separate ways, both of them wonderful.
“Songs For a New World” was revived as part of the Off-Center Encores concert series with a cast of four singers, five dancers, and a nine-person orchestra
And, in the upstairs lobby before that show, it was also the subject of a new 20-minute musical, “Lucky In That Way,” with four singers and a pianist, created by The Civilians, with lyrics and dialogue entirely based on interviews with the company of the original 1995 production of Brown’s show.
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Watch Stars From SpongeBob, Once On This Island, Mean Streets, Carousel Perform at Stars in the Alley

June 4, 2018 Leave a comment

Hailey Kilgore
Hailey Kilgore

Performers from some 20 current Broadway shows offered a free concert in Shubert Alley, to celebrate the Broadway season just past, and whet appetites for the Tony Awards on Sunday, June 10th.
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Symphonie Fantastique: Basil Twist’s innovative abstract puppet concert returns to HERE!

April 5, 2018 Leave a comment

You can say that Harriet Smithson, a famous Shakespearean actress, is the star of the Symphonie Fantastique by composer Hector Berlioz; she is also in a way the star of the Symphonie Fantastique by MacArthur Foundation “genius” artist Basil Twist—although in the Berlioz, Harriet exists only as flirtatious notes from violins and a flute, while in the Twist, she’s a bed sheet. Or, more precisely, she looks like a white bed sheet, but she’s actually a puppet, one of the many puppets in Twist’s show, none of them conforming to any recognizable animal or vegetable or even mineral….The twentieth-anniversary production of Twist’s innovative abstract puppet concert is being presented at HERE, the theatre where it debuted in 1998 to great acclaim.

SF 5
Pianist Christopher O’Riley
Pianist Christopher O’Riley
Backstage with the puppeteers
Backstage with the puppeteers
SF 4
SF Backstage LAKE (c)Richard_Termine
SF 6
SF 7
SF 8
SF 9
SF 10
SF 11
SF 12
Symphonie Fantastique 2 (c)Richard_Termine
Symphonie Fantastique 3

 

Full article on HowlRound

 

 

Filed under concert, Howlround, New York Theater, Photographs, puppetry

Rocktopia Review: Fusing Rock with Classical, Tuneful with Tacky

March 27, 2018 Leave a comment

Singer Tony Vincent and guitarist Tony Bruno

“Imagine Mozart and Beethoven talking, and suddenly Freddie Mercury arrives,” singer Rob Evans said (in the only words anybody spoke all evening) about halfway through “Rocktopia.” If imagining this is painful to you, then you’re not a good fit for “Rocktopia,” which is subtitled “A Classical Revolution,” although it would be more accurate to subtitle it “A Rock Concert.”
“Rocktopia” mashes up pieces by, yes, Mozart and Beethoven as well as a dozen more classical composers with rock songs by, yes, Queen, as well as Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, the Beatles and more. (See full playlist below) I suspect Rocktopia would please rock fans more than classical music lovers, many of whom might consider it blasphemous – or at least blast-phemous. However, while some of the song pairings work better than others, for the open-minded (open-eared?), “Rocktopia” is an intriguing idea. If it winds up better than it sounds, it sounds way better than it looks.

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Hey Look Me Over Review: Encores! 25th anniversary concert

February 10, 2018 Leave a comment

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, the Encores! concert series at City Center is doing something in “Hey Look Me Over” that it’s never done before – and, judging from the results, probably shouldn’t do again.

Vanessa Williams in Jamaica
Vanessa Williams in Jamaica
Bebe Neuwirth in Sail Away
Bebe Neuwirth in Sail Away
Bob Martin as disgruntled Encores subscriber turned curator and MC
Bob Martin as disgruntled Encores subscriber turned curator and MC
Judy Kuhn and Reed Birney in All American
Judy Kuhn and Reed Birney in All American
Carolee Carmello and Britney Coleman in Wildcat
Carolee Carmello and Britney Coleman in Wildcat
EDouglas Sills and Alexandra Socha in Mack & Mabel
EDouglas Sills and Alexandra Socha in Mack & Mabel
Clyde Albes in George M!
Clyde Albes in George M!
Click on any photograph to see it enlarged.

Now, it’s impossible to dismiss a show with such a starry talented cast, including Bebe Neuwirth singing and dancing to Noel Coward’s Sail Away and Vanessa Williams singing and dancing from Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg’s “Jamaica.” Its delights were enough to make me glad I was there.
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Hundred Days Review: The Bengsons’ Concert About Their Love and Anxiety

December 12, 2017 Leave a comment

In “Hundred Days,” a musically engaging autobiographical concert by The Bengsons, Abigail and Shaun Bengson tell us they met one another at “the first rehearsal of a massive anti-folk folk-punk old-timey neo soul band,” and they were married three weeks later. Their relationship terrified both of them – shy Shaun because he feared Abigail would leave him; anxious Abigail because when she was 15 years old she had had a dream that she would meet the love of her life, but that he would only have 100 days left to live.
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Viva Broadway Concert: Watch Latinx Stars Mandy Gonzalez, Lin-Manuel Miranda, John Leguizamo, Ana Villafane, et al

September 16, 2017 Leave a comment

Miranda and Leguizamo at Viva Broadway
Rodney Ingram
Emma
Mandy
Anna at Viva
vivabroadway_logo

With Lin-Manuel Miranda (“Hamilton”) and John Leguizamo (“Latin History for Morons”) serving as co-hosts, the Broadway League presented its annual Viva Broadway concert Friday evening, as a kickoff to Hispanic Heritage Month, showcasing Mandy Gonzalez, who portrays Angelica Schuyler on Hamilton, singing a new song by Miranda, “Fearless,” as well as performances by:
Rodney Ingram, who’s playing Raoul in the Phantom of The Opera, and was raised in the tiny fishing village of Sayulita, Mexico;

Emma Pfaeffle, who is in the cast of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” and is a Cuban-American born and raised in Los Angeles;

Ana Villafañe, who is of Cuban and Salvadoran descent, and was the star of “On Your Feet,” portraying Gloria Estefan.

“This is for the Dreamers,” Gonzalez, whose father was born in Mexico, says in the videos below, before belting out the title song of her forthcoming album.

 

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Tickets to “Hamilton

Tickets to “Latin History for Morons”

Tickets to “Phantom Of The Opera” 

Tickets to “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”

 Tickets to “On Your Feet”

Filed under concert, New York Theater, video

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