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Sara Bareilles, Vanessa Williams and Ledisi are among the artists who will be featured on Great Performances: Celebrating 50 Years of Broadway’s Best, which premieres Friday, May 12, at 9 p.m. ET on PBS and the PBS app.
The program, which marks Great Performances’ golden anniversary, is a revue of milestone Broadway shows from 1973 to 2023. The special will feature a mix of original stars and up-and-coming talent. Hosted by two-time Tony winner Sutton Foster, the program was taped on March 23 at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater in New York.
Bareilles sings “She Used to Be Mine” from Waitress (for which she received a 2016 Tony nomination for original music score). Williams, who earned a 2002 Tony nod her performance in Into the Woods, performs a song from Kiss of the Spider Woman, which brought Broadway legend Chita Rivera her second Tony.
Other highlights of the special include Rivera performing her signature song “All That Jazz” from Chicago; André De Shields performing “So You Wanted to See the Wizard” from The Wiz; a tribute to A Chorus Line featuring Tony-winning original cast member Donna McKechnie joined by Robyn Hurder; and a tap number from Jelly’s Last Jam performed by Corbin Bleu.
Other performers on the show include Brian Stokes Mitchell, Jessie Mueller, Raúl Esparza, Shoshana Bean, Norm Lewis, Rob McClure, Patina Miller, Mamie Parris, Solea Pfeiffer, Britton Smith and Jessica Vosk.
The show features songs by such composers as Stephen Schwartz, John Kander & Fred Ebb, Fats Waller, Stephen Sondheim, Duke Ellington and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Great Performances: Celebrating 50 Years of Broadway’s Best is directed and choreographed by Tony winner Warren Carlyle with Patrick Vaccariallo as music director. The program was directed for television by David Horn, produced by Mitch Owgang and co-produced and written by Dave Boone.
One week later, on Friday, May 19, at 9 p.m. ET, Great Performances will air the Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park production of Richard III starring Danai Gurira (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Walking Dead) with Tony winner Ali Stroker (Oklahoma!) as Lady Anne. Tony nominee Robert O’Hara (Broadway’s Slave Play) directs this Shakespearean tragedy.
One week after that, on Friday, May 26, at 9 p.m. ET, there will be an encore presentation of Cole Porter’s classic 1934 musical Anything Goes, starring Foster (who won her second Tony for the 2011 Broadway production) as well as Tony winner Robert Lindsay. The show, restaged in London’s West End, was directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall. Featuring such classic songs as “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “You’re the Top” and the title song, the show first aired on PBS last year.
This is the season for Broadway programming. The 76th annual Tony Awards, hosted by Ariana DeBose, are set for Sunday, June 11. The show will be held at the United Palace in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood.
Throughout its 50-year history on PBS, Great Performances has amassed 67 Emmy Awards and six Peabody Awards. The series is produced by The WNET Group. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is series producer and David Horn is executive producer.
Tim Rice will be the 2023 recipient of the Johnny Mercer Award at the 52nd annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Dinner, which is slated for Thursday, June 15, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.
Rice, who teamed with Andrew Lloyd Webber to write such classics as Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, is the first songwriter primarily known for his work in theater to receive this award since Stephen Sondheim in 1999.
Rice is the second EGOT recipient to receive the Johnny Mercer Award – following Alan Menken. The two songwriters shared an Oscar and three Grammys for their work on Aladdin.
He’s the fifth songwriter or songwriting team from the U.K. to receive the honor, following Jule Styne (1993), Phil Collins (2010), Elton John & Bernie Taupin (2013) and Van Morrison (2015).
The Mercer Award, the SHOF’s highest honor, is reserved for a songwriter or songwriting team who has already been inducted in a prior year and whose body of work upholds the standards set by Johnny Mercer, a four-time Oscar-winner.
“I am truly honoured to be chosen to receive the Johnny Mercer Award,” Rice said in a statement. “My induction into the SHOF in 1999 was itself a highlight of my writing career and I never expected to receive any further recognition from the most distinguished gathering of songwriters in the world. So, I am bowled over (a cricketing metaphor) with gratitude. I have attended quite a few SHOF events in the past 25 years and they have always been among the most enjoyable of entertainment world extravaganzas – unpretentious, unpredictable, and spectacular. So, June 15, 2023, is a golden booking in my electronic diary.”
Inductees at this year’s Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Dinner are Sade Adu, Glen Ballard, Snoop Dogg, Gloria Estefan, Jeff Lynne, Teddy Riley and Liz Rose. The recipient of a second honorary award, the Hal David Starlight Award, will be announced at a later date.
SHOF Chairman Nile Rodgers said, “Tim Rice is an artisan. He has crafted some of the greatest lyrics and stories in musical history with Jesus Christ Superstar, and his incredible work with Andrew Lloyd Webber being amongst my favorites.”
Rice has won an Emmy, five Grammys, three Oscars and three Tonys. He won an Oscar and three Grammys for his work on Aladdin; two Tonys, a Grammy and an Oscar for Evita and its film adaptation; a Tony and a Grammy for Aida; an Oscar for The Lion King and an Emmy for Jesus Christ Superstar: Live in Concert.
Rice has worked in music, theatre, and films since 1965. In addition to his work with Webber, Rice has worked with such other top composers as Elton John (The Lion King, Aida), Menken (Aladdin, King David, Beauty and the Beast) and Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson (Chess). He has also written with Freddie Mercury, Burt Bacharach and Rick Wakeman, among others.
Rice’s recent musical From Here to Eternity returned to London in November 2022. A new Broadway presentation of Chess is set to open in the fall of 2023. In early 2024, a new production of Aida will make its U.K/West End début. Rice is currently writing and presenting a podcast, Get Onto My Cloud, in which he reminisces about his years in music, theater and film.
Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond will star in Parade on Broadway this spring, reprising their leading roles in the Tony-winning musical following a sold-out New York City Center run.
On Tuesday producers announced the Michael Arden-directed production will open at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre for a limited engagement run starting March 16. Previews will begin on Feb. 21 with a final performance slated for Aug. 6.
“Jason Robert Brown’s and Alfred Uhry’s masterpiece, Parade, is one of the most beloved musicals of the past 25 years. Whenever you mention the show to a theater fan, they light up talking about the first time they saw a production or heard a recording,” producers Seaview and Ambassador Theatre Group said in their own statement. “At City Center, Michael Arden mounted a magnificent production with incandescent performances from Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond that had audiences enraptured. We are overjoyed that we can bring this to Broadway so more people can experience Parade anew.”
The production, written by Pulitzer Prize winner and Academy Award winner Alfred Uhry with music and lyrics by Tony-winner Jason Robert Brown, stars Platt and Diamond as Leo and Lucille Frank, a newlywed Jewish couple already struggling to build a life in the old red hills of Georgia when Leo is accused of an unspeakable crime. It’s an event that propels them both into an unimaginable test of faith, humanity, justice and devotion.
“Twenty-five years ago, we were honored to bring the story of Leo Frank to the musical stage, guided by our visionary director, Hal Prince,” Uhry and Brown said in a statement. “It was an extraordinary gift to watch a whole new audience connect with Parade at City Center under the thrilling direction of a new visionary: Michael Arden. We couldn’t be more grateful that this production is now moving to Broadway, where even more people will get to see Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond deliver phenomenal performances and lead this large and gifted cast.”
After tickets went on sale Tuesday, users trying to buy tickets on Telecharge reported experiencing long wait time and error messages, in part because of demand and also because of the start of the discounted Broadway Week. “After experiencing overwhelming demand for both Parade and Broadway Week, Telecharge service has been restored and tickets are once again on sale. We apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to welcoming audiences to Broadway this winter and beyond,” said a spokesperson from Telecharge.
In its initial Broadway run, the musical — which scored nine Tony nominations and two wins for best book and best original score, was directed by Harold Prince.
“I am delighted that Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown’s musical will be seen by Broadway audiences again after our brief run last fall. Parade has been a seminal piece of theater for me as an artist since it premiered 25 years ago, and to be collaborating with this incredible group of producers, designers, and artists led by the brilliant Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond is truly a dream come true,” Arden said in a statement. “The story of Leo Frank is more important than ever to re-examine, and it is my hope that audiences are both inspired and activated to reflect on both the past failure and the enduring promise of the complicated tapestry we call America.”
Parade‘s creative team includes choreography by Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant, scenic design by Dane Laffrey, costume design by Susan Hilferty, lighting design by Heather Gilbert, sound design by Jon Weston and projection design by Sven Ortel. Tom Murray serves as the music director, with Tom Watson heading up hair and wig design and Justin Scribner serving as production stage manager. Telsey + Co and Craig Burns, CSA handled casting.
This is the second show from New York City Center to come to Broadway this year, following Into the Woods, which ran from August 2022 through Jan. 8. Both shows are musical revivals, and therefore would seemingly be considered in the same Tony Awards category. New York City Center’s Encores! program stages concert versions of older musicals for runs of about one to two weeks.
This story was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Leading up to the lucrative holiday weeks, the Lea Michele-led Funny Girl broke a box office record at the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway.
The revival brought in just above $2 million across eight shows last week, which also marked a record gross for the production. Michele joined the revival in September, following the departure of Beanie Feldstein, in a move seen to help boost grosses for the then-struggling show.
Since Michele joined the production on Sept. 6, Funny Girl has seen that boost, with the musical bringing in more than $1.6 million a week, and recently closer to $2 million, after more modest returns in the spring and a drop to less than $1 million over the summer.
Mean Girls, which played the August Wilson Theatre from March 2018 until the theatrical shutdown, previously set the house record at the theater in 2018 with a gross of $1.99 million.
The recent box office record was set as Funny Girl played to a capacity of 96 percent and commanded an average ticket price of $213.28, the second highest of all shows for the week. Only The Music Man had a higher average ticket price, at $267.99, which helped the show continue its reign as the highest-grossing show of the week, bringing in $3.25 million.
Ain’t No Mo‘ was another notable standout in the week ended Dec. 18, as the new play saw its grosses triple to reach $499,303 from $164,592 the previous week and play to a capacity of 93 percent. The surge came as creator Jordan E. Cooper waged a campaign to stop the show from closing and received help along the way from Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, Tyler Perry, Shonda Rhimes, Gabrielle Union, Dwyane Wade, Queen Latifah and Sara Ramirez, all of whom bought out performances. The show has now extended through Dec. 23 after initially being told it would close on Dec. 18.
Grosses remain high for the standard top performers on Broadway, with The Lion King bringing in $2.4 million, Wicked bringing in $2.2 million and Hamilton bringing in $2.3 million. Phantom continues to see elevated interest, after extending its closure to April after a run of 35 years.
But many Broadway newcomers continue to struggle, with productions such as Topdog/Underdog, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play starring Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, grossing $257,217 last week and playing to a capacity of 52 percent, which has been the trend for several weeks. Almost Famous, which just announced a Jan. 8 closing, played to a capacity of 68 percent and grossed $703,714, down about $61,000 from the previous week.
These grosses are still a welcome reprieve from last December, when a surge in omicron cases among cast and company members caused the cancellation of dozens of performances across the industry and led to the permanent closure of some shows. Coming up, the weeks around Christmas and New Years Eve often bring in the biggest grosses productions see all season.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
If you’ve seen a musical — or, well, anything involving music onstage or onscreen — in the past decade or so, chances are high that Tom Kitt had something to do with it.
The composer, lyricist, musical director, music supervisor, arranger and orchestrator has inhabited one or more of those roles for projects as diverse as Grease: Live!, the Pitch Perfect films (yes, you have him to thank for the “riff-off”), the musical adaptations of Bring It On, SpongeBob SquarePants, Jagged Little Pill and American Idiot. In 2009, he won a Tony Award for his score for the musical Next to Normal, which in 2010 also won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, and though he’s comfortable writing in any number of idioms, he’s become especially well known since then for his keen understanding of how to organically integrate pop and rock sounds into a theater setting.
Right now, Kitt is, as usual, juggling multiple high-profile projects. Most notably, he wrote the score and, with Cameron Crowe, co-wrote the lyrics for the new musical adaptation of Crowe’s beloved film Almost Famous, which just opened on Broadway. He’s brought his vocal arranging expertise to the buzzy new dance musical Only Gold (playing off-Broadway at MCC Theater through Nov. 27) featuring the music of singer-songwriter Kate Nash. And in between, he managed to write a showstopper for a true icon — Elmo — in the new off-Broadway Sesame Street the Musical.
Kitt describes juggling his myriad projects with trademark calm. “Theater is the ultimate collaborative art form,” he says. “You’re always serving many other visions — it’s just a question of what you’re bringing to the project. As long as you’re in an exciting creative world, these [different] things can feed one another, and I don’t feel overwhelmed in any way.” Having worked on shows that have run the gamut of Broadway success, he has a healthy sense of the business’ realities, and has learned how to keep his creative priorities straight. “What’s most important is I’m expressing myself in ways that feel profound and exciting to me,” Kitt says. “I came into this art form so inspired by all the people currently writing, the legends who wrote for the theater. I wanted to be part of that history and hopefully have people say that Tom Kitt musicals have been a part of their life in important ways.”
Casey Likes and Solea Pfeiffer in Almost Famous.
Matt Murphy
Almost Famous
Though Kitt studied economics in college he dreamed of becoming a singer-songwriter and was heavily influenced by classic 1970s albums like Born to Run, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Piano Man —touchstones that came in handy for the moment in which Almost Famous takes place. “I get to now live in that sensibility as a composer and arranger,” Kitt says. The Almost Famous score is mostly Kitt’s original music but does incorporate iconic songs from the movie like Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer,” and Kitt’s job, in part, was “to make it feel like one voice, one score.”
While it may be Crowe’s first time as a Broadway lyricist, Kitt describes him as a natural. “Cameron already is a poet, a lyricist, just in terms of what he’s put into the world,” Kitt says, adding that the lines from Crowe’s movies are themselves “earworms.” As a writing team, “we found our groove right away,” Kitt continues. Crowe would send Kitt the starting thoughts for a song in various forms, and Kitt would start composing from there, with the two “batting it back and forth ‘til we both felt like we were saying what we wanted to say.”
Starting with Next to Normal, and in the years since, Kitt says, he’s learned that while pop music often adheres to a defined form, in theater a pop song needs to serve the plot above all, providing the audience with new information. “It’s about really keeping yourself honest and not just saying, ‘I’m gonna write a pop song and It’s gonna adhere to this form,’ so we feel like we’re building something and don’t stay in the same place, or get there too early.”
Only Gold
Choreographer and director Andy Blankenbuehler is a longtime friend of Kitt’s; the two collaborated on Bring it On: The Musical (a now cult-favorite that opened on Broadway in 2012). This past summer, Blankenbuehler asked Kitt’s recommendation on a vocal arranger for Only Gold, and he volunteered his own services. “Kate Nash is a brilliant writer,” Kitt says. “Her songs are filled with visceral energy and beauty, and you can see how they’re going to be theatrical.” His duties for the show mostly happened before he got into rehearsal with Almost Famous. Blankenbuehler broke down the show by song, filling Kitt in on who would be available to sing each and what kind of tonality he wanted from the vocal arrangements. “I had great guidance going in, and then you hear it in the room and discover new things,” Kitt says.
Jacob Guzman, Ahmad Simmons, Ryan VanDenBoom, Voltaire Wade-Greene, Hannah Cruz, and Reed Luplau in MCC Theater’s 2022 Production of ONLY GOLD
Daniel J. Vasquez
Sesame Street the Musical
In recent years, Kitt has composed for Sesame Street: he wrote a song for Cookie Monster called “If Me Had a Magic Wand,” and a spoof of a famous song from Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sunday in the Park With George called “Look I Made a Splat.” The call for Sesame Street the Musical came through his agent, and it was fairly simple. “They said, ‘We want to craft a big 11 o’clock-style number for Elmo,” Kitt recalls, “and I knew it was a song about imagination.” He thought about the sensibility of classic Sesame Street songs like “Sing,” and asked himself, “What’s something expressive in that world for me to write?” The end product channels the sweetly melodic, anthemic feel of the classics Kitt wanted to channel, but he didn’t hear Elmo sing it until opening night of the show, “and it was everything I hoped it would be. I mean, who doesn’t want to write a song for Elmo? I jumped at the chance.”
