Prima Facie – Golden Theatre – New York, NY

Jodie Comer stars in this play by Suzie Miller that is now playing on Broadway. Miller and Comer won Olivier Awards for Best New Play and Best Actress at this year’s Olivier Awards. Could Tony Awards all come their way?

For tickets and more information, please go here.

Good Night, Oscar – Belasco Theatre – New York, NY Sean Hayes stars in this play about Oscar Levant written by Doug Wright and directed by Lisa Peterson. The show originated in Chicago and received rave reviews for both the play and for Hayes.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

TRADE/Mary Motorhead – LA Opera at REDCAT – Los Angeles, CA – April 27^th – April 30^th

These two one-act operas by composer Emma O’Halloran and her librettist uncle, Mark O’Halloran, debuted at the Prototype Festival in New York earlier this year. Now they are in Los Angeles with original cast members Kyle Bielfield, Mark Kudisch and Naomi Louisa O’Connell in tow.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

Dee Dee Bridgewater & Bill Charlap – SFJAZZ – San Francisco April 27^th – April 30^th

Rarely have two artists so perfectly melded their talents the way jazz singer Bridgewater and pianist Charlap do in concert. I’ve seen them twice and would go again and again given the opportunity. You have the opportunity to hear how great this duo is even if you don’t live in San Francisco. Their performance on April 28^th will be streaming live at 7:30 PM PT (with an encore showing on April 29^th at 11 AM PT).  

For in-person tickets and more information, please go here. For streaming tickets and information, please go here.

Champion – Met Opera Live in HD – Cinemas Worldwide – April 29^th – 12:55 PM ET/9:55 AM PT

This Saturday the Metropolitan Opera will present Terence Blanchard’s first opera, Champion, in a live transmission from the Met in New York City. Ryan Speedo Green, Eric Owens, Latonia Moore, Stephanie Blythe, Paul Groves and Eric Greene star in this opera based on the true story of boxer Emile Griffith. The production is directed by James Robinson with choreography by Camille A. Brown (both of whom were involved in the world premiere of Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones.) Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts.

To find a theater near you, please go here.

Photo: Ryan Speedo Green in Champion (Photo by Ken Howard/Courtesy Met Opera)

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As you can imagine, Broadway has been hit hard by the pandemic with shows closed for months and likely to remain so until next summer at the earliest. So how did this show come to be? The host, Tiny Fey, certainly had a lot to do with it.

Not only has she starred in two hit shows for NBC (Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock), she is also the writer of the book for the musical, Mean Girls, based on the 2004 film she wrote and starred in along with Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams. The musical was still running when Broadway was shut down.

Amongst the musicals being represented in One Night Only are Ain’t Too Proud–The Life and Times of The Temptations, Chicago, Jagged Little Pill, Diana: The Musical, Jersey Boys, Mean Girls and Rent.

Diana: The Musical has yet to open on Broadway. Rent hasn’t been on Broadway since 2008. Jersey Boys is off-Broadway after concluding its Broadway run. The latter two shows remain amongst the most popular shows of all-time.

Cast members from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will also appear.

Joining Fey in the two-hour broadcast are Annaleigh Ashford (Sunday in the Park with George), Antonio Banderas (A Chorus Line in Spain), Lance Bass (Hairspray), Kristen Bell (The Crucible), Kelly Clarkson, Brett Eldredge, Jesse Tyler Ferguson (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), Sutton Foster (Anything Goes), Peter Gallagher (On the Twentieth Century), Josh Groban (Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812), Jake Gyllenhaal (Sunday in the Park with George), Sean Hayes (Promises, Promises), Ron Cephas Jones (Of Mice and Men), Patti LaBelle, Nathan Lane (The Producers), Camryn Manheim (Spring Awakening), Rob McClure (Mrs. Doubtfire), Alanis Morissette (Jagged Little Pill), Jerry O’Connell (A Soldier’s Play), Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton), Mary-Louise Parker (The Sound Inside), Billy Porter (Kinky Boots), John Stamos (Bye Bye Birdie), Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl), Aaron Tveit (Moulin Rouge – The Musical), Blair Underwood (A Soldier’s Play), Vanessa Williams (Into the Woods) and Susan Kelechi Watson (A Naked Girl on the Appian Way).

The show will raise funds for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

One Night Only: The Best of Broadway airs at 8:00 PM local times.

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On Thursday, July 16th, Broadway Barks will take place at 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PM PDT and can be watched on Broadway.com’s Facebook page.

This year marks the 22nd annual event. Each event features celebrities and shelter pets that are available for adoption. This year, with the pandemic, animals and celebrities are being paired up within the safety of their homes.

Peters and her colleagues have assembled a great line-up of talent:

Alec Baldwin, Carol Burnett, Betty Buckley, Danny Burstein, Michael Cerveris, Kristin Chenoweth, Victoria Clark, Alan Cumming, Ted Danson, Ariana DeBose, Raúl Esparza, Gloria Estefan, Sutton Foster, Victor Garber, Whoopi Goldberg, Jeff Goldblum, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Joel Grey, Josh Groban, Jake Gyllenhaal, Julie Halston, Jon Hamm, Emmylou Harris, Sean Hayes, Hugh Jackman, Andy Karl, Nathan Lane, Laura Linney, Rebecca Luker, Audra McDonald, Malcolm McDowell, Laurie Metcalf, Bette Midler, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Rita Moreno, Bebe Neuwirth, Alex Newell, Kelli O’Hara, Orfeh, Mandy Patinkin, Randy Rainbow, Andrew Rannells, John Stamos, Mary Steenburgen, Will Swenson, Michael Urie, Nia Vardalos, Adrienne Warren and Vanessa Williams. 

32 different shelters will participate both in providing dogs and cats available for adoption and in receiving money raised during the event. There is no cost to join Broadway Barks online, but donations are encouraged.

Every year Broadway Barks is a hugely successful pet adoption event. Over the twenty-two years it has taken place they have been able to place approximately 85% of the animals. That means if you fall in love with one of the dogs or cats you see online, you better act quickly!

During Bernadette Peters: A Special Concert, Michael Urie talked about how passionate Peters is in rescuing animals. He said that she regularly goes to shelters that have a “kill policy” (meaning that animals will be euthanized after a certain amount of time has passed) and takes them to shelters that do not have the same policy.

She and co-founder Mary Tyler Moore found a way to take their passion for our four-legged friends and add their celebrity to help animals find homes.

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and Broadway.com are producing the event. Paul Wontorek, who produced the recent Buyer and Cellar and Take Me to the World events, produces for Broadway.com

Photo: Bernadette Peters at the 2018 Broadway Barks events (Photo by Emilio Madrid for Broadway.com/Courtesy of Broadway.com)

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Katia and Marielle Labéque will be playing the two pianos for Carnival. Sean Hayes of Will and Grace will narrate. The text is by Ogden Nash.

Saint-Saëns wrote Carnival of the Animals as a tribute to Mardi Gras. He did, however, choose to skewer many of the people he knew – which probably lead to his desire not to have the piece performed until he had passed away.

The 27-minute work is broken up into 14 sections representing various different animals. Perhaps the best known part of Carnival of the Animals is “Aquarium,” the 7th section.

In the second half of the program the LA Phil will perform the Berlioz. Symphonie Fantastique depicts the life of an artist who uses opium to quiet the pain of deeply-felt rejection. The composer wrote this piece in response to his being spurned by Harriet Smithson, an actress he saw perform Ophelia in Hamlet. She later heard the piece, took an interest in Berlioz and they got married – only to have their marriage fall apart.

Symphonie Fantastique runs approximately 50 minutes.

To read my interview with the Labéque Sisters, go here.

Photo of the Labéque Sisters by Mila/Courtesy of Labeque.com

For tickets go here.

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The Labéque Sisters have been playing music for two pianos together for nearly 50 years. Their first recording was of Olivier Messiaen’s Vision De L’Amen in 1970. But it was a Gershwin recording in 1980 that firmly established their career by becoming one of the first Gold Records in Classical Music.

Carnival of the Animals was written as a celebration of Mardi Gras by the composer in 1886. However, he did not allow the work to be published until after his death in 1922. It’s a work commonly associated with children as it uses music to depict various animals. In the process it showcases various instruments in the orchestra. Ogden Nash wrote text for the piece. At Tuesday night’s performance, Sean Hayes (Will & Grace) will serve as the narrator.

Last week I spoke with Marielle and Katia about this work, their recent collaboration with Thom Yorke of Radiohead and why they wanted to travel all this way to play at the Bowl.

Your schedule only shows one concert upcoming and that is this one performance of Carnival of the Animals. What makes that so special for you that it would be worth your time and energy to fly all the way to Los Angeles to perform a 27-minute piece?

Marielle: It is a bit crazy. First of all because I love this piece and it such a wonderful experience to play the Hollywood Bowl. We love the place and the atmosphere. Also we come to Los Angeles quite often and it also a pleasure to be back. This is the first place we came in America.

Katia: It’s all our friends. It’s like a family. They know us and we’ve been doing so many things for them and it’s exciting. In one concert you can perform for as many people as in seven or eight recitals. It’s not a lot of pressure to do that. It’s pure pleasure.

For those who think Saint-Saëns wrote this piece mostly as a work for children, what would you tell them?

Marielle: Of course there is more to it. He wanted to do it with friends at his home and it became such a popular piece. Aquarium is played every year at the Cannes Film Festival. The Swan is so beautiful. I remember we did Carnival with Leonard Slatkin and the adults were laughing so much more than the children.

Why do you think Saint-Saëns did not want the work published until after his death?

Katia: I am thinking of that every time I play it. I think that’s ironic that this is probably his most famous piece and he didn’t want it published. He was afraid of the people he was mocking – like the donkeys for the music critics. The pianist is also mocking the pianist. We are supposed to play it as if we don’t know how to play. We don’t rehearse it. We don’t fake it, but we try to think of how do we do it if we don’t know how to play.

Composer Bryce Dessner told me that it was a joy to make music with you and that you work harder and that “they can play three notes and it can be just the most beautiful – you make music immediately.” How much work does it take to get to the point where a composer would say that about you?

Katia: It takes certainly a lot of work, but it’s only with this amount of work that you can make it natural. I remember Fred Astaire was asked all the time, “How did you get to dance so naturally.” He said, “I rehearse each movement 5,000 times. And then I can do it easily.” I always have this in mind. That’s the only way to do it.

Marielle: We fight for each note, it is true. We are like that, Katia and I, because we are hard workers. I was so happy when we played for him. We had this energy and desire, of course. If you don’t like the music you play you can’t give pleasure to anyone or the audience. Modern music we love it.

[Earlier this year Dessner released El Chan, which is a concerto who wrote specifically for the Labéque Sisters.]

In addition to working with Dessner, you’ve recently been working with Thom Yorke of Radiohead. What has that experience been like for you?

Marielle: I’m a fan of Radiohead because I really love this group, but Katia this was always her dream. She met him and asked him to write the music which isn’t easy. We worked also like crazy because it was a completely different language than everything we did before. It was two piano and one piece of electronics. 

Katia: Oh he’s a genius! He’s an amazing musician. We’ve been admiring his music since so many years. Radiohead is one of my favorite groups. It’s one of the rare groups that plays manages to produce interesting stuff. Thom was afraid. He said, “I don’t know how to write music.” But he sent .wav files and it was transcribed. From there we started to build up what we imagined of his music. What’s really interesting with Thom is he thinks about atmosphere and mystery and it’s really good for us to work with a musician like that. 

You are now fast-approaching fifty years since your debut. When you imagined your career, is the path you’ve taken so far the career you had hoped for?

Katia: We never imagined that. We had the idea it could be nice, but we never imagined this. Life is always a surprise.

Marielle: Of course we wanted to be together and play together. But it’s still a surprise to for us. It’s a joy to make music. I treasure each moment we have even more than when I was 20 years old. We work a lot but we have something between us like that for so many years. It’s amazing.

Katia: Our only ambition was just to stay together. We did not have this pressure on us when we started. We could concentrate on the music. Today I see a lot of young pianists and they are concerned about the image and things. But when do they practice? We had a very natural way to meet with people and to work and that was good. But you know at the time we started nobody wanted to hear piano duets. It was not very modern. In Europe really we did not have so many duets. Now it is great and we have a lot of [new] works and it’s good for us. We were kind of a model. We are proud of that.

In addition to Carnival of the Animals, the Los Angeles Philharmonic will perform Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. Juanjo Mena conducts.  For tickets go here.

Photos by Umberto Nicoletti/Courtesy of labeque.com

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