Susan Watson
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Susan Watson
Susan Watson (born December 17, 1938) is an American actress and singer best known for her roles in musical theatre. Watson's first professional role was Velma in the original West End production of ''West Side Story'' in 1958. She created the role of Luisa in ''The Fantasticks'' and then played Kim on Broadway in ''Bye Bye Birdie'', beginning in 1960. Among many other roles in musicals, she was nominated for a Tony Award for the role of Jenny in ''A Joyful Noise'' (1966). She starred in the title role of the Broadway revival of ''No, No Nanette'' in 1971. Watson also appeared in several television series and specials. Biography Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Watson was one of five children of a geologist/geophysicist and a dance instructor. From an early age her life was filled with the music of Gilbert and Sullivan and Rodgers and Hammerstein. As a teenager she performed in summer stock before being accepted at the Juilliard School in Manhattan.Buckley, Michael Interview, broa ...
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Susan Kelechi Watson
Susan Kelechi Watson (born November 11, 1981) is an American actress. She is known for her work on the television show ''Louie'' and for her role as Beth Pearson in ''This Is Us''. She was nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for the latter. Early life Watson was born in Brooklyn on November 11, 1981. Her parents were born in Jamaica. Watson's middle name, "Kelechi", is of Nigerian Igbo origins meaning "Thank God". Watson obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Howard University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program. Career Watson had a recurring role on the television show ''Louie'' from 2012 through 2014. She has had recurring roles on ''NCIS'', ''The Following'', and ''The Blacklist''. She appeared in a play at the American Airlines Theatre in New York City by playwright Richard Greenberg entitled '' A Naked Girl on the Appian Way'' in 2005. Since 2016, she ...
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Harvey Schmidt
Harvey Lester Schmidt (September 12, 1929 – February 28, 2018) was an American composer for musical theatre and illustrator. He was best known for composing the music for the longest running musical in history, ''The Fantasticks'', which ran off-Broadway for 42 years, from 1960 to 2002. Biography Schmidt was born in Dallas, Texas. He attended the University of Texas to study art, but when he met Tom Jones at the university, he started to accompany the drama student on the piano. They soon started writing musicals together, the first being a revue. However, after serving in the Army, Schmidt moved to New York and worked as a graphic artist for NBC Television and later as an illustrator for ''Life'', ''Harper's Bazaar'', ''Sports Illustrated'', and ''Fortune''. All of Schmidt's major musicals were written with lyricist Tom Jones. The duo is best-known for the musical ''The Fantasticks'', which ran for 42 years off-Broadway, from 1960 to 2002 for a total of 17,162 performances. ...
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New York City Center
New York City Center (previously known as the Mecca Temple, City Center of Music and Drama,. The name "City Center for Music and Drama Inc." is the organizational parent of the New York City Ballet and, until 2011, the New York City Opera. and the New York City Center 55th Street Theater) is a 2,257-seat Moorish Revival theater at 131 West 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, one block south of Carnegie Hall. City Center is a performing home for several major dance companies as well as the Encores! musical theater series and the Fall for Dance Festival. The center is currently headed by Arlene Shuler, a former ballet dancer who has been president since 2003. The facility houses the 2,257 seat main stage, two smaller theaters, four studios and a 12-story office tower.New York Times, March 17, 2010, pg C1, "City Center Is to Start Renovations", by Robin Pogrebin Architecture The building's design is Neo-Moorish and features elaborate ...
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Jerry Orbach
Jerome Bernard Orbach (October 20, 1935 – December 28, 2004) was an American actor and singer, described at the time of his death as "one of the last'' bona fide'' leading men of the Broadway musical and global celebrity on television" and a "versatile stage and film actor". Orbach's professional career began on the New York stage, both on and off-Broadway, where he created roles such as El Gallo in the original off-Broadway run of '' The Fantasticks'' (1960) and became the first performer to sing that show's standard "Try to Remember", Billy Flynn in the original ''Chicago'' (1975–1977), and Julian Marsh in '' 42nd Street'' (1980–1985). Nominated for multiple Tony Awards, Orbach won for his performance as Chuck Baxter in '' Promises, Promises'' (1968–1972). Later in his career, Orbach played supporting roles in films such as ''Prince of the City'' (1981), '' Dirty Dancing'' (1987), ''Crimes and Misdemeanors'' (1989), and, as a voice actor, Disney's ''Beauty and the Bea ...
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John Raitt
John Emmet Raitt (; January 29, 1917 – February 20, 2005) was an American actor and singer best known for his performances in musical theatre. Early years Raitt was born in Santa Ana, California, United States. He got his start in theatre as a high school student at Fullerton Union High School in Fullerton, California. While there, he played in several drama productions in Plummer Auditorium. Raitt sang in the chorus of ''The Desert Song''. (A few years before he died, Raitt again came back to the Plummer to see a rehearsal, visit students and recollect his beginnings.) He is on the school's "Wall of Fame" for his accomplishments. In 1935, Raitt won the "football throw" at the California State High School Track and Field Championship; his mark of 220 feet remains the state record in that short-lived event. He was named "Athlete of the Meet" after that accomplishment. He graduated from the University of Redlands in 1939. After graduating, he was initially inclined toward a ...
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Carousel (musical)
''Carousel'' is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics). The 1945 work was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play ''Liliom'', transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He participates in a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; after it goes tragically wrong, he is given a chance to make things right. A secondary plot line deals with millworker Carrie Pipperidge and her romance with ambitious fisherman Enoch Snow. The show includes the well-known songs "If I Loved You", "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". Richard Rodgers later wrote that ''Carousel'' was his favorite of all his musicals. Following the spectacular success of the first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, ''Oklahoma!'' (1943), the pair sought to collaborate on anot ...
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Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 million visitors annually. It houses internationally renowned performing arts organizations including the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, and the Juilliard School. History Planning A consortium of civic leaders and others, led by and under the initiative of philanthropist John D. Rockefeller III, built Lincoln Center as part of the "Lincoln Square Renewal Project" during Robert Moses's program of New York's urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s."Rockefeller Philanthropy: Lincoln Center"
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Ben Franklin In Paris
''Ben Franklin in Paris'' is a musical with a book and lyrics by Sidney Michaels, and music by Mark Sandrich, Jr. with two songs contributed by Jerry Herman. Premise The story is a somewhat fictionalized account of Benjamin Franklin's adventures in the French capital. Seeking support for the Colonies' war against England, he arrives in Paris, where he enlists the aid of an old friend, Madame la Comtesse Diane de Vobrillac, a confidante to King Louis XVI. Franklin's hopes of winning the king's support seem dashed when British forces capture Philadelphia but rally when the Colonists are victorious at Saratoga. At home, his son William, the governor of New Jersey, sides with the enemy, and the traitorous act upsets the elder Franklin's plans. To regain the upper hand, he offers to marry Diane, but she rejects him. Knowing he faces death by hanging, Franklin nevertheless decides to go to England, hoping his act of martyrdom will win him posthumous support. Diane learns of the plan ...
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Robert Preston (actor)
Robert Preston Meservey (June 8, 1918 – March 21, 1987) was an American stage and film actor and singer of Broadway and cinema, best known for his collaboration with composer Meredith Willson and originating the role of Professor Harold Hill in the 1957 musical ''The Music Man'' and the 1962 film adaptation; the film earned him his first of two Golden Globe Award nominations. Preston collaborated twice with filmmaker Blake Edwards, first in '' S.O.B.'' (1981) and again in ''Victor/Victoria'' (1982). For portraying Carroll "Toddy" Todd in the latter, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 55th Academy Awards. Early life Preston was born Robert Preston Meservey in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Ruth L. (née Rea) (1895–1973) and Frank Wesley Meservey (1899–1996), a garment worker and a billing clerk for American Express. After attending Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles, he studied acting at the Pasadena Community Playhouse. ...
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Carnival (musical)
''Carnival'' is a musical, originally produced by David Merrick on Broadway in 1961, with the book by Michael Stewart and music and lyrics by Bob Merrill. The musical is based on the 1953 film ''Lili'', which again was based on the short story and treatment titled "The Seven Souls of Clement O'Reilly" by Paul Gallico. The show's title originally used an exclamation point (as ''Carnival!'' ); it was eventually dropped during the show's run, as director Gower Champion felt it gave the wrong impression, saying, "It's not a blockbuster. It's a gentle show." Background In December 1958 producer David Merrick announced his intent to produce a stage musical based on the 1953 film ''Lili'', a concept suggested to Merrick by that film's screenwriter Helen Deutsch. Originally Deutsch was to write the musical's book while the score was assigned to Gérard Calvi, a French composer — ''Lili'' was set in France — who authored the revue ''La Plume de Ma Tante'' which Merrick produced on B ...
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Hallmark Hall Of Fame
''Hallmark Hall of Fame'', originally called ''Hallmark Television Playhouse'', is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City-based greeting card company. The longest-running prime-time series in the history of television, it first aired in 1951 and continues into the present day. From 1954 onward, all of its productions have been broadcast in color. It was one of the first video productions to telecast in color, a rarity in the 1950s. Many television films have been shown on the program since its debut, though the program began with live telecasts of dramas and then changed to videotaped productions before finally changing to filmed ones. The series has received eighty-one Emmy Awards, dozens of Christopher and Peabody Awards, nine Golden Globes, and Humanitas Prizes. Once a common practice in American television, it is one of the last remaining television programs where the title includes the name of its sponsor. Unlike othe ...
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Gower Champion
Gower Carlyle Champion (June 22, 1919 – August 25, 1980) was an American actor, theatre director, choreographer, and dancer. Early years Champion was born on June 22, 1919, in Geneva, Illinois, as the son of John W. Champion and Beatrice Carlisle. He was raised in Los Angeles, California, where he graduated from Fairfax High School. He studied dance from an early age and, at the age of fifteen, toured nightclubs with friend Jeanne Tyler billed as "Gower and Jeanne, America's Youngest Dance Team". In 1939, "Gower and Jeanne" danced to the music of Larry Clinton and his Orchestra in a Warner Brothers & Vitaphone film short-subject, "The Dipsy Doodler" (released in 1940). Career During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Champion worked on Broadway as a solo dancer and choreographer. After serving in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II, Champion met Marjorie Belcher, who became his new partner, and the two were married in 1947. In the early 1950s, Marge and Gower Champi ...
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