Displaying her flawless vocal abilities, superb comic timing, dramatic range and exuberant presence, Ann Harada was the standout of the six-member company. She was in the original Broadway cast of "Avenue Q" and appeared in the recent Broadway production of "Cinderella." Her exquisite renditions included “Getting to Know You” from "The King and I," “Do You Love Me?” from" Fiddler on The Roof," “Sing Happy,” the 11:00 number from Flora The Red Menace, and “Distant Melody,” from "Peter Pan." Ms. Harada vividly demonstrated her delightful skills throughout. [more]
Opening with a soaring symphonic “Deck the Halls” and then joined by the wonderful Essential Voices USA chorus for it, The New York Pops closed their concert, "It’s Christmas Time in the City,." with a rousing audience sing-a-long of “Come All Ye Faithful” and “Silent Night.” In between, there was a delightful selection of classic and newer Christmas songs several performed by Broadway stars Stephanie J. Block and Brian d’Arcy James. Santa Claus and one of his elves also comically visited. Beaming music director Steven Reineke commandingly conducted the 78-piece orchestra and personably hosted this engaging presentation. [more]
In this centennial of the birth of jazz great Billie Holiday, The New York Pops November concert was devoted to Harlem Renaissance ladies like Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington as well as Holiday. Titled "Sophisticated Ladies," the evening was graced by three dynamic guest artists, Montego Glover, Capathia Jenkins and Sy Smith, who have a tremendous affinity with this music, along with music director and conductor Steven Reineke who narrated the story of this spirited and electrifying music. Beginning with Sam Shoup’s orchestral arrangement of Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the ‘A’ Train,” and ending in a rousing encore of “Get Happy,” performed by all the artists, the evening brought the audience to its feet. [more]
With a cast led by downtown icons Joey Arias and Julie Atlas Muz, "Sisters’ Follies" includes life size puppets, flying ghosts, music and dance, topless performances, talking masks, and spectacular recreations of their most famous productions. When we first meet them, they are ghosts flying about the stage in long white diaphanous gowns glad to be back in their theater. They then sing a duet of Irving Berlin’s “Sisters” with appropriately new ribald lyrics. From their clever banter, we discover that Alice (Arias) was an actress and Irene (Muz) a dancer who were continually warring over everything from billing to which of them received more flowers to their legacies. Self-centered Alice, the older sister, is always cool and collected while Irene, who worships her even though she always seems to get the short end of the stick, is more passionate and temperamental. Today Irene is remembered as having founded the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, while the acting school they both founded, The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, is also very much alive. [more]
Ann Marie DeAngelo, the longtime producer and director of the Career Transition for Dancers: 30th Anniversary Pearl Jubilee, has outdone herself this year with a smooth and satisfying program, balancing entertaining dance numbers with just the right amount of speechifying. Adding appearances by Broadway and TV star Bebe Neuwirth, prima ballerina Cynthia Gregory and Hollywood royalty, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michael Douglas and (Rolex honoree) Shirley MacLaine to the mix, resulted in a gala that out-gala-ed the previous ones. [more]
When American born Londoner Harold Chapin was killed in W.W. I in 1915, he was a highly regarded actor, stage manager and playwright, although not as famous as his colleagues George Bernard Shaw, James Barrie or John Galsworthy. While he had completed four full-length plays, his early death led to an eclipse of his work and his fame. In the centenary of his death, the Mint Theater Company well-known for uncovering lost works of merit, has revived his major comedy, "The New Morality." While Jonathan Bank’s production is elegant and polished, this diverting play unfortunately seems lightweight and thin today. [more]
Romantic comedy was once the staple of Broadway. Today it turns up more often in the movies. When it appears on the stage it is fairly unusual today and something of a throwback to an earlier era. Alan Hruka’s "Laugh It Up, Stare It Down" is quite charming in its way. However, its whimsical style tends to undercut the serious topics it deals with on the subject of love, marriage and how to treat life’s problems. As a result, it seems more than vaguely inconsequential. However, it remains a diverting if innocuous evening of light entertainment. [more]
Written almost ten years ago, ":Araberlin" is the story of the mysterious disappearance of Mokhtar (Gabriel Diaz DeSalas), a young man whom it would appear has left America to join an ISIS-like militant group. A bleak story with much in common with the present, the play glides between the past and present, flashing to scenes between Mokhtar with his family, or scenes solely featuring his loved ones following his disappearance. Focusing on the dysfunctional elements in Mokhtar’s life prior to the events of the play, Diaz DeSalas as Mokhtar is an angst-filled young man who hardly had a normal relationship in his life. [more]
Maestro Steven Reineke, backed up by the largest pops orchestra in the United States, took us on an astonishing musical journey. The song selections made the perfectly-paced concert one of the most memorable nights of music in the past decade. [more]
We associate Jacobean revenge tragedy with the reign of King James I. Each play’s atrocities seemed to dare the next playwright with an unspoken “Can you top this?” Playwright John Ford continued the genre under the next king, Charles I, coming up with new and even more lurid variations. Red Bull Theater which specializes in the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries is offering a staging of Ford’s rarely revived masterpiece "‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore." While artistic director Jesse Berger has piloted a solid production which is a good introduction to this unfamiliar play, it all seems a bit tame when the script seems to cry out for tremendous excesses. As always, however, with Red Bull productions, the diction in this revival is impeccable and totally intelligible. [more]
December 12, 2015 marks the 100th birthday of Frank Sinatra. Sinatra’s singing career spanned seven decades starting in the 30’s until shortly before his death in 1998, winning him eleven Grammy Awards. Even those born after his death know his iconic songs such as “Love and Marriage,” which was used as the theme song of the TV sitcom Married with Children. Sinatra is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide. He is considered by many to be "the greatest singer of the 20th century.” Led by the energetic and creative Music Director Steven Reineke, The New York Pops Presents "Let’s Be Frank" affectionately and admirably paid tribute to the prolific and unique singing career of Frank Sinatra with the help of four robust and polished guest singers, Storm Large, Tony DeSare, Frankie Moreno and Ryan Silverman. [more]
Gotham Chamber Opera's hour-long program at the Metropolitan Museum, entitled "The Tempest Songbook," took these truisms into account by alternating Shakespeare settings by the contemporary Finnish master Kajia Saariaho, with Baroque-era settings attributed to Purcell. Those who found Saariaho's language unfamiliar or taxing were given a reassuring figured bass to fall back on, while those who found the typical Baroque Aria da Capo form tediously repetitious were never more than a few minutes away from the next of Saariaho's elegant and colorful modernist miniatures. Soprano Jennifer Zetlan and bass-baritone Thomas Richards were both excellent, sounding completely at ease and consistently expressive in this sometimes challenging music. The ensemble of Baroque instruments was conducted with élan by Neal Goren, and the production directed and choreographed elegantly by Luca Veggetti. [more]
Lyrics & Lyricists artistic director Deborah Grace Winer was the show’s host. Charming, and with dry humor and passion, Ms. Winer delivered informative and entertaining commentary between songs. Her funny material included riffs on Seinfeld, the high cost of pastrami, and King Kong climbing The Empire State Building: “Not everyone makes it in New York.” [more]
"The Winter’s Tale" is classified as one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays” or “dark comedies” and as such it does not get produced very often. Under the direction of The Shakespeare Society’s Michael Sexton, The Pearl Theatre’s revival is elegant and entertaining. It solves some of the play’s problems while creating new ones. Surprisingly, the contemporary sets by Brett J. Banakis and costumes by Tilly Grimes work amazingly well for a tale told of the 16th century. [more]
Mr. Busch, known as a playwright of campy homages to old movies in which he often plays female roles, was an appropriate and authoritative host. For most of the proceedings, he sat off to the side wearing male attire wryly reading the often affectionate commentary. He chronicled the history of the Hollywood musical, its stars, its songwriters and its studios. This background material described the distinctive cinematic styles of the major studios, and the idiosyncratic moguls who ruled them. The musical movie histories of Warner Brothers, MGM, Universal, Paramount, 20th Century Fox and Columbia were detailed. Well-selected illustrative slides and film clips were projected above the orchestra. [more]
Hugh Jackman's charismatic, sinister and charming performance is the only reason to see Jez Butterworth's delicate but thin play, The River, Butterworth's next Broadway play after Jerusalem. Unlike Jerusalem, The River doesn't have much story or much in way of a message, though in its form and structure it is a mystery. However, Jackman (in another role in which he is onstage almost throughout the play) commands our attention in a way few actors can and you can hear a pin drop at any moment during the 85 minute evening. [more]
Despite the sometimes-questionable song selection and orchestration choices, All You Need Is Love upheld the New York Pops' well-established standard of excellence. Reineke's unparalleled expertise and steady hand provide evenings of culture, history and entertainment time and time again. [more]
Since 2001, Gotham Chamber Opera has specialized in the production of major operas – well known, not known, new, traditional, experimental – and has developed a reputation for intelligence and a consistently high level of artistic integrity. This pair of Martinu comic operas, sung by an enthusiastic young cast performing on a gorgeously set stage, preserves Gotham Chamber Opera's fine reputation. [more]
What the production does have is a ravishing scenic design made up of colorful and witty projections (sometimes animated) by Roger Hanna & Price Johnston for the play's 23 tableaux, moving from Paris to Marseilles, Saigon, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, & mythical Brazilian city of Donogoo-Tonka. [more]
Every song was well chosen to demonstrate the versatility and range of R & H and the singers all met the challenge. Rebecca sang the often neglected "The Gentleman is a Dope" (Allegro) and turned it into a showstopper. The show closed with "Edelweiss" (Sound of Music) that Ted said people think is an old Austrian folk song but was written by these legendary collaborators. It was the perfect ending for a wonderful tribute to a never to be duplicated writing team whose shows and music will live forever. [more]
