There is always a lot to choose from when the Hollywood Bowl announces its summer season. This year is no exception. In an effort to help you make your decisions, we’re posting our choices for the best concerts in classical music, jazz and pop music/broadway. Today we’re showcasing our choices for the five best pop/Broadway music concerts to see this season.
July 14th: Kristin Chenoweth in Concert
The Broadway shows You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Wicked, Promises, Promises and On the Twentieth Century all have one woman in common: Kristin Chenoweth.
Chenoweth received a Tony Award for her performance in Charlie Brown and was Tony nominated for Wicked and On the Twentieth Century. But it is her way with a song that stands above it all.
This concert was originally billed as “An Intimate Evening with Kristin Chenoweth.” If anyone could make the Hollywood Bowl seem intimate, it is this 4’11” bundle of energy from Oklahoma. Her powerhouse voice will easily reach the seats in the back of the venue.
When I spoke with her six years ago in advance of her first concert at the Hollywood Bowl she said, “When I do television, I realize more people will see me in one night than would see me in most of my time on Broadway. My challenge, and I’m excited by it, is to make people feel like they are at home. It’ll be a fun journey but also intimate.”
She has the ability to sing Broadway tunes, country music, pop music and spiritual songs. In short she can sing it all. With this concert she will almost close out her 50th birthday year. (Her birthday is ten days after this concert (July 24th.) Who knows? Perhaps the audience will serenade her with Happy Birthday. That will show you just how Popular she is.
Thomas Wilkins will lead the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.
July 19th and 20th: Hugh Jackman: The Man, The Music, The Show
With his work as one of the X-Men behind him, Jackman can focus on his true love: the stage. He will return to Broadway next year in a revival of The Music Man with Sutton Foster. He previously appeared on Broadway in The Boy From Oz (which lead to his Tony Award), Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway and the plays A Steady Rain and The River.
For this show you can expect that Jackman will pull from a variety of sources including the musicals mentioned above, Les Misérables and The Greatest Showman. He’s an avowed disciple of Gene Kelly, so a tribute to him would not be a surprise.
Jackman is a throwback to another era when song-and-dance men were celebrated. Sure, he can scare people as Wolverine, but it is when he’s singing and dancing that he’s at his happiest and this show will find the audience just as happy.
Keala Settle joins Jackman for these two concerts.
July 26th, 27th and 28th: Into the Woods
Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s unique interpretation of various fairy tales will come to life in three concerts at The Hollywood Bowl. And what a cast they have assembled: Skylar Astin, Sierra Boggess, Chris Carmack, Anthony Crivello, Sutton Foster, Tamyra Gray, Cheyenne Jackson, Hailey Kilgore, Gaten Matarazzo, Patina Miller, Rebecca Spencer, Shanice Williams and the voice of Whoopi Goldberg.
Into the Woods, which was made into a successful film in 2014, contains such memorable songs as Children Will Listen, No One Is Alone, Agony and my personal favorite, Last Midnight.
Each year the Hollywood Bowl puts on a musical that gets performed three times. It’s a herculean effort, in a limited amount of time, for both the cast and the crew. Into the Woods, with its multiple locations, interlocking storylines and some of Sondheim’s trickiest melodies and lyrics, will test everyone.
Robert Longbottom, who directed Side Show, Bye Bye Birdie and Flower Drum Song, helms Into the Woods. We will have interviews with Longbottom and Patina Miller the week the show opens.
September 8th: Gladys Knight
It seems as though each category we are covering includes an artist who needs no introduction. And in the pop/Broadway listings it is definitely Gladys Knight.
This seven-time Grammy Award winner was first introduced to the world via the Ted Mack Amateur Hour. But it was with The Pips, who released their first album in 1960, that Knight rose to fame. Amongst their best-known songs are I Heard it Through the Grapevine and If I Were Your Woman. She’s been singing and entertaining audiences ever since.
Knight has also found success in film and television. She received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Pipe Dreams. (A film that was celebrated in the most recent Black Movie Soundtrack concert with a surprise performance by Knight.) She’s appeared in films with Harrison Ford and films by Tyler Perry.
But it’s her glorious voice that fans know and love most. Joining Knight for this concert is The Kingdom Choir. This is the choir that performed at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
September 25th: Black Movie Soundtrack III
This is the third time around for Marcus Miller and Reggie Hudlin. Like the two previous concerts, the show celebrates both instrumental and vocal music from black movies. If the previous concerts are any indicator, this show will certainly be one of the most entertaining nights at the Bowl this year.
Popular singers and artists come together to perform this music. Sometimes the original artists who introduced the material perform the songs; other times artists interpret songs from black movies that they love. All of these performances will be accompanied by film clips from the movies being celebrated.
So far the line-up for this year’s show includes El DeBarge, Dionne Farris, Raphael Saadiq and BeBe Winans. I would anticipate that more artists will be added to this concert as the September date nears.
Craig Robinson, as he has before, will serve as the host for the concert. Vince Mendoza will lead the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.
For tickets to all Hollywood Bowl shows go here.
All photographs, unless otherwise noted, courtesy of the LA Philharmonic Association.