Press Releases September 2008
Merkin Concert Hall presents Broadway Close Up: Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt (Oct. 6, 2008)
The opening concert of Merkin Concert Hall’s Broadway Close Up series features the songs of legends Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt. Jones and Schmidt launched their New York careers with their now legendary musical The Fantasticks, which became the longest-running musical both in the world and in the history of the American theater. Their subsequent musicals, both on Broadway and off, have continued to be original, innovative and delightfully eccentric. Join lyricist Tom Jones, host Sean Hartley and some of New York’s finest performers to celebrate their unique career.
The marvelous cast for this concert features Karen Ziemba (Tony Award winner), Martin Vidnovic (Baby), Ken Kantor (Phantom of the Opera), Nick Spanger (The Fantasticks), Susan Watson (No, No, Nanette, Bye, Bye Birdie), Dick Latessa (Tony Award for Hairspray), Donna English (Forbidden Broadway, Ruthless) and veteran film dancer Marge Champion along with legendary choreographer Donald Saddler, who will perform the world premiere of a new dance.
About Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt
Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt began writing musicals together when they were students
at the University of Texas. Their New York careers were launched writing material for the
famed Julius Monk Upstairs-Downstairs Revues and Ben Bagley's Shoestring Revues. The
true turning point came in May, 1960 when Lore Noto produced their now legendary
musical The Fantasticks at the Sullivan Street Playhouse. Still playing after 36 years, and
likely to continue indefinitely, The Fantasticks is the longest running musical in the world
and the longest running show of any kind in the history of the American theater. It has had
over 10,000 productions in 64 foreign countries.
Next came a musical version of N. Richard Nash's play The Rainmaker, entitled 100 In The Shade. It was their first Broadway show and it boasted a glorious score that was especially singled out by the critics. Their next opus was a two character musical called I Do! I Do! starring Mary Martin and Robert Preston. A great success on Broadway and on the road, it was later filmed for video starring Lee Remick and Hal Linden.
Seeking to expand the scope of the Broadway musical, the team's next effort was the innovative Celebration, which attempted to combine aspects of myth and ritual with popular entertainment. For several years they worked privately at Portfolio, their own theater workshop in New York, concentrating on small-scale musicals in new and often untried forms. The most notable of these efforts, which also included The Bone Room and Portfolio Revue, was Philemon, which won the Outer Critics Circle Award and which was later produced by Hollywood Television Theater.
Beginning in 1970, in a production starring Zoe Caldwell and Mildred Dunnock and continuing on through various incarnations, Jones and Schmidt worked on a major musical covering the long and varied life of the great French writer Colette. Among their most recent endeavors is a musical version of Thornton Wilder's classic play Our Town. Entitled Grover’s Corners, it played in Chicago to great acclaim, and it is now planned for a future production. They are currently preparing a musical based on the award-winning children's story Mirette on the High Wire, entitled Mirette, which was presented in August, 1996 by Goodspeed Musicals in Chester, Connecticut.
Merkin Concert Hall’s Broadway Close Up series celebrates American musical theater old and new and offers backstage insights from the theater's top professionals. An inside look at the world of musical theater, the series will feature Maltby & Shire (Baby, Big, Closer Than Ever, Starting Here, Starting Now) on November 3, and on December 8 Bound for Broadway VIII host Liz Callaway will present a handful of new works in various stages of development.
Listings Information:
Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center presents
BROADWAY CLOSE UP:
Jones & Schmidt
Monday, October 6, 2008 at 8:00pm
129 West 67th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam)
Tickets at 212 501 3330 or http://www.kaufman-center.org
Single tickets are $40 (3-concert subscription $85)
EDITORS: Please refer to the series by its name, BROADWAY CLOSE UP…
and its location, Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center
Press Only: Hi-res photos for download at http://kaufman-center.org/press/image-library
About Merkin Concert Hall
Renowned for its acoustics, accessibility and innovative programming, the recently renovated Merkin Concert Hall is the recipient of multiple
awards for adventurous programming, most recently from ASCAP/Chamber Music America in 2002–03. The Hall is a division of Kaufman
Center, which also includes Lucy Moses School (a community arts school) and Special Music School (a New York City public school for musically
gifted children). A not-for-profit organization founded in 1952, Kaufman Center occupies its own facility, the award-winning Goodman House,
located in Manhattan’s Lincoln Square arts district. The Center is an unsurpassed cultural resource where people of all ages can experience the
joy of artistic creation, expression and appreciation.
Kaufman Center’s presentations in Merkin Concert Hall are made possible in part by institutional support from the Amphion Foundation, BMI Foundation, Inc., Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Edward T. Cone Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Barbara Bell Cumming Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Fink Foundation, Inc., Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Herman Goldman Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Florence Gould Foundation, The Edith Meiser Foundation, Rodgers and Hammerstein Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Adolph and Ruth Schnurmacher Foundation, Starr Foundation, Phyllis Fox and George Sternlieb Foundation, and with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.