by Mark G. Auerbach
Goodspeed Welcomes Thoroughly Modern Millie
Thoroughly Modern Millie, the musical about a small town girl who moves to 1922 New York City to find a job and a boyfriend in the flapper era, opens the Goodspeed Musicals 2017 season, April 21 through July 2.
Based on a popular movie musical of 1967, which was inspired by a British musical from 1956, Thoroughly Modern Millie won six Tony Awards, when it opened on Broadway in 2002, and made Sutton Foster a star. Jeanine Tesori composed new songs for the musical, and added some from the movie and other sources, and Richard Morris and Dick Scanlon adapted the basic plot of the movie with some updates.
The movie was a delight, with great performances by Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore, the incomparable Beatrice Lillie and a larger-than-life Carol Channing. Angela Lasbury performed the title song at the Oscars that year, She was starring on Broadway in Mame at the time, and it’s hard to believe that the lady from Murder She Wrote could kick up her heels like that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq2G5nC9mkk
Edward Watts
Taylor Quick plays Millie. Tony Award nominee Loretta Ables Sayre will play Mrs. Meers. Sayre received a Theatre World Award for her performance as Bloody Mary in the Lincoln Center Theater revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific. Edward Watts returns to Goodspeed as Trevor Graydon. Mr. Watts was last seen at Goodspeed as Thomas Jefferson in 1776. On Broadway, Edward appeared in Scandalous, and Finian’s Rainbow. He was Superman in the Encores It’s A Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman. Thoroughly Modern Millie will be directed and choreographed by Denis Jones, who choreographed Goodspeed’s world-premiere production of Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn, which moved to Broadway last fall with Jones at the helm.
For details: 860-873-8558 or www.goodspeed.org.
Winners:
New England Public Radio has announced the recipients of its 2017 Arts & Humanities Award. Illustrator Barry Moser, Literacy Advocate and Author Ty Allan Jackson and the Northampton Jazz Workshop will be honored at an event on May 24. For details: www.nepr.net.
Rob Ruggiero, TheaterWorks Artistic Director, won a St. Louis Theater Circle Award for his staging of the musical Follies there. Follies won six other awards. For details: http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/arts-and-theatre/big-night-for-the-rep-bonfiglio-and-the-bard-at/article_e4f6937c-af9c-579e-9fde-b61e4af01103.html
More Summer Theatre
Tanglewood will welcome Diana Ross and Melissa Etheridge to the popular line-up this summer. Miss Ross appears on August 30. Her daughter, American singer and actress Rhonda Ross, opens the concert. Diana Ross previously performed at Tanglewood in 1989. Grammy and Oscar award-winning American rock singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge joins Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops for a season-closing performance on September 3,. For details: 888-266-1200 or www.tanglewood.org.
Michele Lee
Barrington Stage Company has some additions to its Pittsfield, MA summer line-up. From July 13-29, Stephen Karam’s Speech and Debate will be at BSC’s St. Germain Stage. This highly acclaimed play is by the author of The Humans, which received a Tony Award on Broadway last season. Broadway veteran Ed Dixon brings his one-man show, Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose, to Pittsfield on August 30-September 2. Eric Schaeffer of Broadway’s Follies revival, directs. In Georgie, Ed Dixon chronicles his relationship with his friend and mentor, the Tony Award-winning character actor George Rose (The Mystery of Edwin Drood, My Fair Lady, Pirates of Penzance). On Monday, July 31, Michele Lee headlines Nobody Does It Like Me: The Music of Cy Coleman. Straight from Broadway’s Wicked, spotlights the music of Cy Coleman (Sweet Charity, Barnum and City of Angels). Including songs from their musical Seesaw, The 2017 Youth Theatre Program production will be Bye Bye Birdie, onstage at The Berkshire Museum. For details: www.barringtonstageco.org .
Keep in Mind…
Washington Garcia
The Springfield Symphony Orchestra performs a program, Nights in the Gardens of Spain, on April 8 at Springfield Symphony Hall. Kevin Rhodes conducts a program which includes Liszt’s Prometheus, S.99 (Symphonic Poem No. 5), Saint-Saens’ .La Jeunesse d’Hercule, Op. 50; De Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain – Piano Concerto with Washington Garcia as gust soloist, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol, Op. 34. For details: 413-733-2291 or www.springfieldsymphony.org.
Terrence Blanchard. (Photo by Henry Adebonojo)
Terence Blanchard and The E-Collective—Charles Altura, guitar; Fabian Almazan, piano and synths; David “DJ” Ginyard Jr., bass; Oscar Seaton, drums—will bring a night of music that blends jazz, funk, R&B, and blues to the UMass Fine Arts Center in Amherst on April 8. Born and raised in New Orleans, Blanchard began playing professionally while still in his teens and early twenties, with Lionel Hampton’s orchestra and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. For details: 413-545-2511 or 800-999-UMAS or www.fineartscenter.com
The 19th Annual High School Jazz Festival takes place at UMass/Amherst on April 8, under the auspices of the UMass Department of Music and Dance. Approximately 25 high school big bands, combos and lensembles gather for a day of masterclasses, clinics, and a showcase performance. Among the participants is a group from Enfield High School under the direction of Mark Reppucci, from Longmeadow. For details: 413-545-2511 or 800-999-UMAS or www.fineartscenter.com
Derek Klena and Christy Altomare co-star in Anastasia on Broadway. (Photo by Joan Marcus)
Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, the cabaret musical built around the great Belgian/French singer/songwriter’s most memorable songs, opens the Silverthorne Theatre series in the Arts Block in downtown Greenfield. Performances run April 13-23. For details: 413-768-7514 or www.silverthornetheater.org
Anastasia, the acclaimed musical which premiered at Hartford Stage last Spring, is now in previews on Broadway, headed for a late April opening. Most of the Broadway company appeared in Hartford last season. For details: http://www.anastasiabroadway.com/
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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.
