MARK AUERBACH
Motown The Musical
The big Broadway hit Motown: The Musical is Bushnell-bound (March 22-27) and its a cavalcade of the groups and songs that made the Motown label famous, under the eyes of legendary music producer Berry Gordy Jr. (who wrote the book for this show) and is portrayed by Hairspray’s Chester Gregory in this tour.
For Motown, Gordy packaged and produced Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and more. Over forty Motown hits are sung and danced to in Motown: The Musical, including “My Girl”, “Dancing in The Streets”, “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”, and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. Charles Randolph Wright staged the Broadway production with choreography by Patricia Wilcox and Warren Adams.
Motown The Musical was a big hit on Broadway and on tour, and this tour returns to Broadway on July 12 for a limited run.
For details on Motown The Musical: http://www.motownthemusical.com/ For Bushnell ticket information: 860-987-5900 or www.bushnell.org.
Reed L. Shannon as Michael Jackson with the Jackson 5 in Motown The Musical at The Bushnell. (Photo by Joan Marcus)
The Bushnell Broadway 2016-17 Season
There will be a bevy of current Broadway blockbusters at The Bushnell on its Broadway roster next season, including the acclaimed production of An American in Paris, the Lincoln Center production of The King and I, the award-winning Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time; A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (which went to Broadway in the first place from Hartford Stage, winning Tony Awards for “Best Musical” and a “Best Director of a Musical” for Darko Tresnjak. If/Then, the musical which brought Idina Menzel back to Broadway, plays Hartford without Menzel, and last year’s Tony winner Fun Home plays Hartford. Beautiful, The Carole King Musical, and a return visit of The Book of Mormon complete the season. For details: 860-987-5900 or www.bushnell.org.
Daniel Elihu Kramer, Chester Theatre Company’s new Artistic Director.
Think Summer
Chester Theatre Company, now under the helm of Daniel Elihu Kramer, has announced its upcoming season (June 30-August 28). Chester opens with the world premiere of My Jane, an adaptation of Jane Eyre by Kramer; Oh God by Anat Gov, produced in partnership with Israeli Stage; Sister Play by John Kolvenbach, which was originally produced by Harbor Stage in Wellfleet, and Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop, a highly acclaimed play about the last night of Dr. Martin Luther King’s life.(and had a successful run at Hartford’s TheaterWorks in 2013). Chester has added Friday matinees this year. For details: 413-354-7770 or www.chestertheatre.org.
Allan Taylor, guest conductor at the Pioneer Valley Symphony.
Keep in Mind
The Pioneer Valley Symphony and Chorus performs music by Beethoven, Brahms, and Dvorak on March 19 at Greenfield High School. Allan Taylor is guest conductor. He’ll be familiar to area music lovers. He’s celebrating his 15th season as director of the Hampshire Choral Society; he’s an adjunct professor of music at Westfield State University, and minister of music at Westfield’s First Congregational Church. He recently retired as director of Novi Cantori. For details: 413-773-3664 or www.pvsoc.org.
Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares presents Andrew Drury’s Content Provider, on March 17, at the Parlor Room, in Northampton. Content Provider includes: Andrew Drury, percussion, Briggan Krauss, alto saxophone and Ingrid Laubrock, tenor saxophone. For tickets: www.jazzshares.org and at the door.
In Their Father’s Image: Susy, Clara, and Jean Clemens is a major exhibition opening at The Mark Twain House and Museum on March 24. It includes rare artifiacts from Mark Twain’s daughters and their family life. Samuel and Olivia Clemens’s three daughters – Olivia Susan “Susy” Clemens, born 1872, Clara Langdon Clemens, born 1874, and Jane “Jean” Lampton Clemens, born 1880 – were highly individual and spirited characters in their own right. Growing up in the great Hartford house, they lived a privileged life full of social activity, play and learning – with the added benefit of having a warm and witty father, an equally warm and brilliant mother, and servants who were as often playmates and admirers as service staff. The exhibit will run through January 24, 2017. For details: 860- 247-0998 or www.marktwainhouse.org.
The cast of On The Twentieth Century at Theatre Guild of Hampden.
On The Twentieth Century, the zany Cy Coleman, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green musical about a down-on-his-luck theatre producer, his former muse – now a Hollywood star, and a wealthy matron of the arts. Can he convince the matron to fund the play to star the muse? Everything happens on the legendary high-speed train between Chicago and New York. Through March 13. Theatre Guild of Hampden, performing at Wilbraham Middle School. Radio personality Brad Shepard is in the cast. For details: http://theatreguildofhampden.org/
Special, a new play written and starring Rachel Siegel, gets a workshop production directed by Jayne Atkinson on March 18-20, under the auspices of WAM Theatre and the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge. Special follows one woman’s journey after she discovers she is pregnant with a child with Down syndrome.For details: 413-274-8122 or http://www.wamtheatre.com/special/
The Presto Middle School Music Festival showcases the finest young choral ensembles from Vermont and New Hampshire on March 11 at Keene State College in NH. The award-winning Kurn Hattin Homes Singers, under the direction of Lisa Bianconi, who performed at last year’s Big E, the PBS series Together in Song, and at Baystate Medical Center, are on the bill. For details: http://www.keene.edu/arts/redfern/events/1438629120272/
Mark G. Auerbach studied theatre at American University and the Yale School of Drama. He’s worked for arts organizations and reported on theatre for newspapers and radio.
