Barry Kleinbort Archives - TheaterScene.net

Barry Kleinbort

Jay Rogers: A Remembrance

November 12, 2022

Jay Rogers, who's lost his battle with cancer, was a wonderfully impish cabaret star, with impeccable comic timing. Totally likeable fellow, on stage and off stage. I was so happy to be able to include him on an album I produced this year, "Chip Deffaa's My Man.” He's a total delight, singing an original song by Barry Kleinbort, "Leading Lady Valentine." I'm so glad he was able to record it for me. No one else could have put over that special material with such great charm. I would not have recorded that song had he been unavailable. And I'd hoped to record him again. I first saw him, several decades ago, in a witty cabaret show at Eighty-Eights, singing songs of George Winters. [more]

Cheek to Cheek: Irving Berlin in Hollywood

December 6, 2021

This show is conceived, directed, and choreographed by Randy Skinner, and his four-time Tony Award-nominated talents shine throughout the production. The choreography is inventive, interactive, fun and impressive. His staging is well-balanced and keeps the transitions moving. The opening number, “Let Yourself Go” ("Follow the Fleet," 1936), sets the bar high with dynamic tapping that leaves the audience exhilarated and ready for more. Barry Kleinbort’s book is packed with interesting Berlin history and is full of charm and wit. Thank you, casting director Michael Cassara, for the great ensemble cast! Six performers were chosen to present this material: Phillip Attmore, Jeremy Benton, Victoria Byrd, Kaitlyn Davidson, Joseph Medeiros, and Melanie Moore. All six actors move through the evening in harmony, both physically and vocally, interacting with each other in song and dance as though in conversation. [more]

Broadway & the Bard

February 9, 2016

At the top of the show Cariou tells us that he made his Broadway debut in the Stratford Connecticut Shakespeare Festival’s transfer of "Henry V" in 1969 and six months later in the spring of 1970 appeared at the Palace Theatre in the new musical" Applause." Ever since then, he has had the idea to combine Shakespeare and song with “tunes that either support the text or are the antithesis.” The evening proceeds to pair Shakespeare and song thematically, like the opening sequence which offers Orsino’s “If music be the food of love, play on” from "Twelfth Night," followed by Sondheim’s “Love, I Hear” from "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" and Rodgers and Hart’s “Falling in Love with Love,” from "The Boys from Syracuse," based on Shakespeare’s "The Comedy of Errors." [more]