America is known the world over for inventing two major art forms: jazz and the Broadway musical. The latter will be celebrated at 7:30 p.m. in Emens Auditorium.
Neil Berg and a cast of five Broadway performers will give their regards to the famous stage, as Berg's touring production of "100 Years of Broadway" stops at Emens as the first event in its Performing Artist Series.
Berg, a Broadway composer/lyricist who doubles as a producer, has put together a revue that recreates moments from musicals going all the way back to the first decade of the 20th century.
"[The production] is a nice historic overview of Broadway through song," said Darcy Wood, associate director of Emens Auditorium.
The show is formatted as a cabaret revue rather than as a Broadway musical, with Berg narrating the back-stories of the original Broadway musicals and playing the piano in the company's four-piece orchestra, she said.
Two years ago, Berg began working on "100 Years of Broadway," with a rotating cast of stars. Since then they have performed in more than 130 venues, all over the United States and in Aruba.
Berg described "100 Years of Broadway" as "Broadway in its ultimate form - informal, classy yet classic."
"What separates us from everyone else is that we are bringing five Broadway stars - people who starred in various shows - and they re-create the moments that made them famous," he said.
The show will feature Eric Buckley, who has starred in "Les Miserables," "The Phantom of the Opera" and "The Full Monty;" Carter Calvert, who was in the original cast and album of "It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues"; Berg's wife, Rita Harvey, who recently played Hodel in the Broadway revival of "Fiddler on the Roof;" Ray McLeod, who starred in "Wonderful Town" and has sung at the Metropolitan and Los Angeles operas; and Danny Zolli, who has starred in "Jesus Christ Superstar" on Broadway and around the world.
Songs from the Broadway productions "Cats," "West Side Story" and "Grease," among more than 20 others, are also scheduled as part of the production, Wood said.
The program will open with "Give My Regards to Broadway," a song taken from George M. Cohan's "Little Johnny Jones," which originally debuted on Broadway in 1906.
To ensure that the program is truly covering 100 years of Broadway musical history, Berg will perform his self-composed "The Stream," a song from his 2006 Broadway musical "Grumpy Old Men," Berg said.
"We're bringing the great American art form of theater to the stage," he said. "[The show] is an overview of great American [musical] literature and what made it so great."
Berg did not always consider composing as a set career path, he said, although he has always enjoyed playing and composing music as a hobby. Berg started playing piano when he was 10 years old and began writing lyrics a year later.
A rhetoric and literature major at the State University of New York Binghamton, Berg said he always loved creative writing, storytelling and music. He said he never seriously thought of composing and producing until a fellow student asked him to collaborate on a musical.
"Combining lyrics and instrumentals, for me, was like mixing milk chocolate and peanut butter for the first time - it just tasted
right," Berg said.
100 Years of Broadway: A Few Expected Performances
Give My Regards to Broadway; "Little Johnny Jones" (1906), Gershwin
Old Man River; "Show Boat" (1927), Kern/Hammerstein
My Funny Valentine; "Babes in Arms" (1937), Rodgers and Hart
Oklahoma; "Oklahoma" (1943), Rogers and Hammerstein
Over the Rainbow; "The Wizard of Oz" (1950), Alren/Harburg
Don't Rain on My Parade; "Funny Girl" (1966), Styne
All That Jazz; "Chicago" (1975), Kander and Ebb
Think of Me; "Phantom of the Opera" (1986), Weber
I'm a Woman; "Smokey Joe's Caf+â-¬" (1995), Lieber/Stoller
The Stream (2006); "Grumpy Old Men," Berg
Additional InformationDate: 9/26/2007
Time: 7:30 PM
Venue: Emens Auditorium
Cost: Reserved Seating: $45/38/30/28 adults; $25/20 youth (18 & under); $39/33/25/23 Pick 4+, BSU students free in advance ($10 at the door) w/valid ID; groups of 20 or more receive $10 off single admission price(s).
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