Kaufman Center Press Releases
Broadway Close Up: Maltby & Shire Press Release
October 6, 2008 – Merkin Concert Hall’s Broadway Close Up series continues with Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire. Together Maltby (Tony Award for Ain’t Misbehaving, lyricist of Miss Saigon and The Pirate Queen) and Shire (Academy Award-winning composer of “It Goes Like It Goes” from Norma Rae) have created numerous on- and off-Broadway shows, including Baby, Big, Closer Than Ever, Starting Here, Starting Now and the upcoming Take Flight.
Maltby and Shire will be joined by some of their favorite singers and longtime associates, including Sally Mays (Tony nominee for She Loves Me; original cast of Maltby & Shire’s Closer Than Ever), Lynne Winterstellar (original cast, Closer Than Ever) and Loni Ackerman (Evita, Cats, original cast of Maltby & Shire’s Starting Here, Starting Now). In addition to talking about their writing careers, Maltby and Shire will perform some songs themselves, including two new ones from their upcoming musical about the Wright Brothers and Amelia Earhart, Take Flight, which they are writing with book writer John Weidman (Assassins, Pacific Overture). Benjamin Schrader and Gwen Hollander, two rising New York stars who last appeared together in the Barrington Stage Company production of See Rock City, will also be joining the cast.
Host Gretchen Cryer , the award-winning lyricist/book writer of The Last Sweet Days of Isaac and I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It on The Road, is a long-time friend who appeared in Maltby and Shire’s first shows from their college days. Musical director Patrick Brady is currently the musical director of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein and was also musical director for The Producers. He first worked with Maltby and Shire as musical director for Closer Than Ever and is also responsible for some of the vocal arrangements for their Broadway musical Big.
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 last show in the series is Bound for Broadway VIII, featuring dazzling host Liz Callaway on December 8, which will present a handful of new works in various stages of development.
Listings Information:
Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center presents
BROADWAY CLOSE UP:
Maltby & Shire
Monday, November 3, 2008 at 8:00pm
129 West 67th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam)
Tickets at 212 501 3330 or http://www.kaufman-center.org
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.