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Porchlight Music Theatre
Porchlight Music Theatre is a professional theatre company in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois that has won numerous Joseph Jefferson awards, Joseph Jefferson Awards in its 25-year history. The company has come to embody the slogan "american musicals. chicago style." About Its initial production in 1995 was the premiere of ''Women Who Love Science Too Much'' by K.R. Cahill and directed by William Eric Bramlett. In 2010, Michael Weber took over artistic direction. Weber previously served as artistic director for the inaugural season of Drury Lane Theatre (Illinois), Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place (now the Broadway Playhouse) and at Theatre at the Center (1998–2004). During the 2016–2017 season, the theatre attracted record attendance with its staging of ''In the Heights''. This production changed the face of the company and helped the company move to the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, in Chicago's Gold Coast Historic District (Chicago), Gold Coast. Productions Ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, "a place for viewing"), itself from θεάομαι (theáomai, "to see", "to watch", "to observe"). Modern Western theatre comes, in large measure, from the theatre of ancient Greece, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Theatre artist Patrice ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Company (musical)
''Company'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth. The original 1970 production was nominated for a record-setting 14 Tony Awards, winning six. ''Company'' was written in a style without a chronological linear path. Its story depicts the internal observations of its lead character, Robert. ''Company'' is a concept musical composed of short vignettes linked by Robert's 35th birthday. ''Company'' was among the first book musicals to deal with contemporary dating, marriage and divorce.''Broadway: the American musical'', episode 5: "Tradition (1957–1979)", 2004. Background George Furth wrote 11 one-act plays planned for Kim Stanley. Anthony Perkins was interested in directing and gave the material to Sondheim, who asked Harold Prince for his opinion. Prince said the plays could be a good basis for a musical about New York marriages with a central character to examine those marriages. Synopsis In the early 1990s, Furth and Sondheim revi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pacific Overtures
''Pacific Overtures'' is a Musical theater, musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by John Weidman, with "additional material by" Hugh Wheeler. Set in 19th-century Japan, it tells the story of the country's westernization starting in 1853, when American ships forcibly opened it to the rest of the world. The story is told from the point of view of the Japanese, and focuses in particular on the lives of two friends who are caught in the change. Sondheim wrote the score in a quasi-Japanese style of parallel 4ths and no leading-tone. He did not use the pentatonic scale; the 4th degree of the major scale is represented from the opening number through the finale, as Sondheim found just five pitches too limiting. The music contrasts Japanese contemplation ("There Is No Other Way") with Western ingenuousness ("Please Hello") while over the course of the 127 years, Western harmonies, tonality and even lyrics are infused into the score. The score is generally conside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Candide (musical)
''Candide'' is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the 1759 novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to Voltaire's novel. The primary lyricist was the poet Richard Wilbur. Other contributors to the text were John Latouche, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman, Stephen Sondheim, John Mauceri, John Wells, and Bernstein himself. Maurice Peress and Hershy Kay contributed orchestrations. Although unsuccessful at its premiere, ''Candide'' has now overcome the unenthusiastic reaction of early audiences and critics and achieved more popularity. Origins ''Candide'' was originally conceived by Lillian Hellman as a play with incidental music in the style of her previous work, '' The Lark''. Bernstein, however, was so excited about this idea that he convinced Hellman to do it as a "comic operett ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nine (musical)
''Nine'' is a musical whose original conception and music and lyrics are by Maury Yeston, with a book by Arthur Kopit. It is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical 1963 film ''8½''. The show tells the story of film director Guido Contini, who is dreading his imminent 40th birthday and facing a midlife crisis, which is blocking his creative impulses and entangling him in a web of romantic difficulties in early-1960s Venice. Conceived and written and composed by Yeston as a class project in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in 1973, it was later adapted with a book by Mario Fratti, and then with another a book by Arthur Kopit. The original Broadway production opened in 1982 and ran for 729 performances, starring Raul Julia. The musical won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and has enjoyed a number of revivals. Background Yeston began to work on the musical in 1973. As a teenager, he had seen the Fellini film and was intrigued by its themes. "I look ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phantom (musical)
''Phantom'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Arthur Kopit. Based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel ''The Phantom of the Opera'', the musical was first presented in Houston, Texas in 1991. Although it has never appeared on Broadway and has been overshadowed by the success of the 1986 Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Yeston and Kopit's ''Phantom'' has received over 1,000 productions. Background Yeston and Kopit had just finished the musical ''Nine'', winner of the Tony Award for ''Best Musical'' in 1982, when in 1983 they were approached by actor/director Geoffrey Holder to write a musical based on Leroux's novel. Holder had obtained the rights to musicalize the novel in America from the Leroux estate, making ''Phantom'' the only ''Phantom of the Opera'' musical to do so. Holder planned to direct. Initially, Yeston was skeptical of the project. "I laughed and laughed.... That's the worst idea in the world! Why would you want to write a musical based o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ragtime (musical)
''Ragtime'' is a musical with music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and a book by Terrence McNally. It is based on the 1975 novel of the same name by E.L. Doctorow. Set in the early 20th century, ''Ragtime'' tells the story of three groups in the United States: African Americans, represented by Coalhouse Walker Jr., a Harlem musician; upper-class suburbanites, represented by Mother, the matriarch of a white upper-class family in New Rochelle, New York; and Eastern European immigrants, represented by Tateh, a Jewish immigrant from Latvia. The show also incorporates historical figures such as Harry Houdini, Evelyn Nesbit, Booker T. Washington, J. P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Stanford White, Harry Kendall Thaw, Admiral Peary, Matthew Henson, and Emma Goldman. Production history Original Toronto and Broadway production The musical had its world premiere in Toronto, where it opened at the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts (later renamed the Toronto Centre for the Arts) on D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assassins (musical)
''Assassins'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by John Weidman, based on an original concept by Charles Gilbert Jr. Using the framing device of an all-American, yet sinister, carnival game, the semi-revue portrays a group of historical figures who attempted (successfully or not) to assassinate Presidents of the United States, and explores what their presence in American history says about the ideals of their country. The score is written to reflect both popular music of the various depicted eras and a broader tradition of "patriotic" American music. The musical opened Off-Broadway in 1990 to many mixed and negative reviews, and ran for 73 performances; in 2004, the show was produced on Broadway to highly favorable notices and won five Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical. Background and productions Background In 1979, as a panelist at producer Stuart Ostrow's Musical Theater Lab, Sondheim read a script by playwright Charles G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Wonderful Life (musical)
''A Wonderful Life'' is a 1986 musical with a book and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and music by Joe Raposo. Based on the classic 1946 Frank Capra film ''It's a Wonderful Life'' starring James Stewart, the story closely follows the original plot, set in 1945, telling the story of a suicidal man whose guardian angel reveals to him how different the world and everyone whose life he has touched would be if he'd never been born. The film was based on the 1943 short booklet by Philip Van Doren Stern, ''The Greatest Gift''. Background and production history Harnick and Raposo worked for many years to put together a musical version of ''It's a Wonderful Life'', but just as the musical's book was completed, a controversy arose over the rights to the underlying Stern story that delayed production of the show. During this delay, Raposo died of cancer in 1989. ''A Wonderful Life'' was performed initially at the University of Michigan in 1986. The first professional production took plac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Secret Garden (musical)
''The Secret Garden'' is a musical based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The musical's script and lyrics are by Marsha Norman, with music by Lucy Simon. It premiered on Broadway in 1991 and ran for 709 performances. The story is set in the early years of the 20th century.In the original script of the play, the date is indicated as 1906, but the libretto for the Broadway cast album has the conflicting date of 1911. Mary Lennox, an English girl born and raised in the British Raj, is orphaned by a cholera outbreak when she is ten years old. She is sent away from India to the moors of Yorkshire, England, to live in the manor of a brooding uncle she has never met. There, her personality blossoms among the other residents of the manor as they bring new life to a long-neglected garden. Productions The musical had its world premiere at the Wells Theatre, Norfolk, Virginia, in a Virginia Stage Company production, running from November 28 to December 17, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gypsy (musical)
''Gypsy: A Musical Fable'' is a musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. It is loosely based on the 1957 memoirs of striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee, and focuses on her mother, Rose, whose name has become synonymous with "the ultimate show business mother." It follows the dreams and efforts of Rose to raise two daughters to perform onstage and casts an affectionate eye on the hardships of show business life. The character of Louise is based on Lee, and the character of June is based on Lee's sister, the actress June Havoc. The musical contains many songs that became popular standards, including "Everything's Coming Up Roses", "Together (Wherever We Go)", "Small World", " You Gotta Get a Gimmick", " Let Me Entertain You", "All I Need Is the Girl", and "Rose's Turn". It is frequently considered one of the crowning achievements of the mid-twentieth century's conventional musical theatre art form, often called the book musical. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closer Than Ever
''Closer Than Ever'' is a musical revue in two acts, with words by Richard Maltby, Jr. and music by David Shire. The revue contains no dialogue, and Maltby and Shire have described this show as a "bookless book musical." The show was originally conceived by Steven Scott Smith as a one act revue entitled ''Next Time Now!'', which was first given at the nightclub Eighty-Eights. The success of ''Next Time Now!'' led to a much expanded production retitled ''Closer Than Ever'' that was co-directed by Maltby and Smith and featured musical direction by Patrick Scott Brady. This production began its life at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts during the summer of 1989. It then came to New York, beginning previews on October 17 and officially opening November 6 at the off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theatre, where it ran for 312 performances. The cast included Brent Barrett, Sally Mayes, Richard Muenz, and Lynne Wintersteller. ''Closer Than Ever'' features self-contained songs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
