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Swingin' On Broadway
''Swingin' on Broadway'' is jazz vocalist Gary Williams's third album, recorded at Abbey Road Studios and released in 2008. It is a collection of songs from some of the most famous Broadway musicals. Critical reception The album was released to positive reviews. Malcolm Laycock of Big Band World gave it five stars and commented: "It’s a well-paced CD of enjoyable variety, skilfully performed. Gary’s in great voice and all’s well. I think I would rate this his best showing to date. Impressive sound balance achieved by producers John Wilson and Mike Dutton."Malcolm Laycock, Big Band World, August 3, 2007 Clive Fuller of Encore said: "From the opening song “Chim Chim Cheree” from Mary Poppins through to “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Spamalot the pace is well handled both vocally and instrumentally with plenty of opportunity for the soloists to shine... This is a must have CD." Track listing Personnel Performers * Gary Williams – vocals * C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gary Williams (singer)
Gary Williams (born 15 December 1970) is a British jazz singer, writer, and broadcaster whose performances include concerts, cabaret shows, and theatre. Williams has recorded ten solo albums and written ''Cabaret Secrets'', a book on stagecraft. Music career Williams started his career in social clubs before performing with the BBC Big Band on BBC Radio Humberside. This led to appearances on BBC Radio 2's ''Big Band Special'', BBC television's ''Pebble Mill at One'' with David Jacobs, and Gloria Hunniford's '' Open House'' with Burt Bacharach. He played the role of Frank Sinatra for the West End show ''The Rat Pack'' for 150 performances at the Haymarket Theatre, the Adelphi Theatre, and subsequent UK and European tours. In 2006 he performed in BBC1's 'Doctor Who – A Celebration' concert with David Tennant and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with the BBC National Chorus of Wales conducted by Ben Foster. In 2007 he recorded two songs for the soundtrack of the Warner Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver!
''Oliver!'' is a coming-of-age stage musical, with book, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the 1838 novel '' Oliver Twist'' by Charles Dickens. It premiered at the Wimbledon Theatre, southwest London in 1960 before opening in the West End, where it enjoyed a record-breaking long run. ''Oliver!'' ran on Broadway, after being brought to the U.S. by producer David Merrick in 1963. Major London revivals played from 1977–1980, 1994–1998, 2008–2011 and on tour in the UK from 2011–2013. Additionally, its 1968 film adaptation, directed by Carol Reed, won six Academy Awards including Best Picture. ''Oliver!'' received thousands of performances in British schools, becoming one of the most popular school musicals. In 1963 Lionel Bart received the Tony Award for Best Original Score. Many songs are well known to the public, such as " Food, Glorious Food", " Consider Yourself" and " I'd Do Anything". ''Oliver!'' was one of eight UK musicals featured o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Rodney Bennett
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (29 March 193624 December 2012) was an English composer of film, TV and concert music, and also a jazz pianist and occasional vocalist. He was based in New York City from 1979 until his death there in 2012. Zachary Woolfe"Richard Rodney Bennett, British Composer, Dies at 76" ''New York Times'', 30 December 2012 Life and career Bennett was born at Broadstairs, Kent, but was raised in Devon during World War II. His mother, Joan Esther, née Spink (1901–1983) was a pianist who had trained with Gustav Holst and sang in the first professional performance of ''The Planets''. His father, Rodney Bennett (1890–1948), was a children's book author, poet and lyricist, who worked with Roger Quilter on his theatre works and provided new words for some of the numbers in the '' Arnold Book of Old Songs''. Bennett was a pupil at Leighton Park School. He later studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Howard Ferguson, Lennox Berkeley and Cornelius Cardew. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spamalot
''Spamalot'' (also known as ''Monty Python's Spamalot'') is a musical comedy with music by John Du Prez and Eric Idle, and lyrics and book by Idle. It is adapted from the 1975 film '' Monty Python and the Holy Grail''. Like the motion picture, it is a highly irreverent parody of the Arthurian legend, but it differs from the film in many ways. The original 2005 Broadway production, directed by Mike Nichols, received 14 Tony Awards nominations, winning in three categories, including Best Musical. During its initial run of 1,575 performances, it was seen by more than two million people and grossed over $175 million. Tim Curry starred as King Arthur in the original Broadway and West End productions. It was one of eight UK musicals commemorated on Royal Mail stamps, issued in February 2011. A Paramount Pictures film adaptation, directed by Casey Nicholaw in his directorial debut from a script by Idle, was in pre-production as of 2021. Synopsis Before the show A recording ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dirty Dancing
''Dirty Dancing'' is a 1987 American romantic drama dance film written by Eleanor Bergstein, produced by Linda Gottlieb, and directed by Emile Ardolino. Starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, it tells the story of Frances "Baby" Houseman, a young woman who falls in love with dance instructor Johnny Castle (Swayze) at a vacation resort. The film was based on screenwriter Bergstein's own childhood. She originally wrote a screenplay for the Michael Douglas film '' It's My Turn'', but ultimately ended up conceiving a story for a film which became ''Dirty Dancing''. She finished the script in 1985, but management changes at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer put the film in development hell. The production company was changed to Vestron Pictures with Emile Ardolino as director and Linda Gottlieb as producer. Filming took place in Lake Lure, North Carolina, and Mountain Lake, Virginia, with the film's score composed by John Morris and dance choreography by Kenny Ortega. ''Dirty Dancing'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wicked (musical)
''Wicked'' is a 2003 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman. It is based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel '' Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West'', in turn based on L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' and its 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film adaptation. The show is told from the perspective of, and focuses on, the witches of the Land of Oz; its plot begins before and continues after Dorothy Gale arrives in Oz from Kansas. ''Wicked'' tells the story of two unlikely friends, Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) and Galinda (later Glinda the Good Witch), whose relationship struggles through their opposing personalities and viewpoints, same love-interest, reactions to the Wizard's corrupt government, and, ultimately, Elphaba's private fall from grace. Produced by Universal Stage Productions, in coalition with Marc Platt, Jon B. Platt, and David Stone, with direction by Joe Mantello and ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pardon My English
''Pardon My English'' is a musical with a book by Herbert Fields and Morrie Ryskind, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and music by George Gershwin. Set in 1933 Dresden, the farcical plot satirizes the Prohibition era. Production history Producers Alex A. Aarons and Vinton Freedley approached the Gershwins to create a showcase for the talents of English music hall star Jack Buchanan, and linked them with Fields and Ryskind, whose book required the actor to appear in dual roles, lower-class German thug Golo Schmidt and upper-crust British nobleman Michael Bramleigh. The sophisticated Buchanan had no problem portraying Bramleigh but was unable to capture the essence of Schmidt. The show opened in Philadelphia to critical pans. Rather than proceed to Broadway, the creative team added characters and expanded the role of police commissioner Bauer, played by radio's "Baron Munchausen", Jack Pearl. The revised production opened in Newark on January 2, 1933, but it was obvious that Buchanan was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oklahoma!
''Oklahoma!'' is the first musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, ''Green Grow the Lilacs''. Set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Indian Territory, in 1906, it tells the story of farm girl Laurey Williams and her courtship by two rival suitors, cowboy Curly McLain and the sinister and frightening farmhand Jud Fry. A secondary romance concerns cowboy Will Parker and his flirtatious fiancée, Ado Annie. The original Broadway production opened on March 31, 1943. It was a box office hit and ran for an unprecedented 2,212 performances, later enjoying award-winning revivals, national tours, foreign productions and an Oscar-winning 1955 film adaptation. It has long been a popular choice for school and community productions. Rodgers and Hammerstein won a special Pulitzer Prize for ''Oklahoma!'' in 1944. This musical, building on the innovations of the earlier ''Show Boat'', epitomized the development of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sound Of Music
''The Sound of Music'' is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, ''The Story of the Trapp Family Singers''. Set in Austria on the eve of the '' Anschluss'' in 1938, the musical tells the story of Maria, who takes a job as governess to a large family while she decides whether to become a nun. She falls in love with the children, and eventually their widowed father, Captain von Trapp. He is ordered to accept a commission in the German navy, but he opposes the Nazis. He and Maria decide on a plan to flee Austria with the children. Many songs from the musical have become standards, including " Edelweiss", " My Favorite Things", " Climb Ev'ry Mountain", "Do-Re-Mi", and the title song " The Sound of Music". The original Broadway production, starring Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel, opened in 1959 and won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
On A Clear Day You Can See Forever
''On a Clear Day You Can See Forever'' is a musical with music by Burton Lane and a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner based loosely on ''Berkeley Square'', written in 1926 by John L. Balderston. It concerns a woman who has ESP and has been reincarnated. The musical received three Tony Award nominations. Productions The Broadway production opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on October 17, 1965, and closed on June 11, 1966, after 280 performances and 3 previews. The production was directed by Robert Lewis, choreographed by Herbert Ross, and starred Barbara Harris as Daisy Gamble/Melinda, John Cullum as Dr. Mark Bruckner, Clifford David as Edward Moncrief, Titos Vandis as Themistocles Kriakos, and William Daniels (Harris's co-star in '' A Thousand Clowns'') as Warren Smith. Louis Jourdan was the original leading man when the show had its tryout at the Colonial Theatre in Boston but was replaced by Cullum before it reached Broadway. Scenic design was by Oliver Smith and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alec Wilder
Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder (February 16, 1907 – December 24, 1980) was an American composer. Biography Wilder was born in Rochester, New York, United States, to a prominent family; the Wilder Building downtown (at the "Four Corners") bears the family's name and his maternal grandfather, and namesake, was prominent banker Alexander Lafayette Chew. As a young boy, he traveled to New York City with his mother and stayed at the Algonquin Hotel. It would later be his home for the last 40 or so years of his life. He attended several prep schools, unhappily, as a teenager. Around this time, he hired a lawyer and essentially "divorced" himself from his family, gaining for himself some portion of the family fortune. He was largely self-taught as a composer; he studied privately with the composers Herman Inch and Edward Royce, who taught at the Eastman School of Music in the 1920s, but never registered for classes and never received his degree. While there, he edited a humor m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Annie (musical)
''Annie'' is a Broadway musical based upon the popular Harold Gray comic strip '' Little Orphan Annie'' and loosely based on the 1885 poem " Little Orphant Annie" written by James Whitcomb Riley. The musical includes music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and a book by Thomas Meehan. The original Broadway production opened in 1977 and ran for nearly six years, setting a record for the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon Theatre). It spawned numerous productions in many countries, as well as national tours, and won seven Tony Awards, including the Tony Award for Best Musical. The musical's songs "Tomorrow" and "It's the Hard Knock Life" are among its most popular musical numbers. Background Charnin first approached Meehan to write the book of a musical about ''Little Orphan Annie'' in 1972. Meehan researched by rereading prints of the comic strip, but was unable to find any satisfactory material for a musical other than the characters of Annie, Oliver Warbucks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
