Composer Alan Menken recently joked that he's got almost enough Oscars to bowl with, but at a concert celebrating his music April 3 in Yorktown Heights, NY, he'll leave the Academy Awards behind and just bring his fingers.
He'll perform 8 PM April 3 with Broadway singers in a benefit for The Yorktown Stage, a new company that presents plays and musicals under an Equity guest artist contract. Menken is friends with Yorktown's musical director, Chloe Sasson.
Among musical theatre stars singing Menken's stage and movie songs will be Craig Schulman (Les Miserables), Christine Pedi (Little Me, Forbidden Broadway), Glory Crampton (of Maury Yeston-Arthur Kopit's Phantom), John Egan (Jekyll & Hyde, When Pigs Fly), Kim Breden (Germany's Phantom of the Opera and South Africa's My Fair Lady), James Gerth (My Favorite Year), Chris Jamison (Annie, Fiddler on the Roof), opera singer Caryn Hartglass.
The Yorktown Stage ensemble will also perform. Accompaniment will be piano.
Menken's work includes the musicals Little Shop of Horrors, Beauty and the Beast and the films "Aladdin," "The Little Mermaid," "Hunchback of Notre Dame," "Newsies," "Hercules" and more. The Yorktown Stage theater company began in 1998 under the guidance of artistic director-executive producer Barry Liebman and technical director-executive producer James Gerth.
Proceeds from the concert will help defray production costs of opening a new professional company.
Tickets range $50-$2500, with a post-show dessert reception for those paying $100 or more.
Yorktown Stage is on Veterans Road in Yorktown Heights, NY. For information, call (914) 962-0606.
The next production of the Yorktown Stage is Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance, April 16-25, starring James Gerth as the Pirate King, Caryn Hartglass as Mabel, James Marino as Frederic, Chris Jamison as Ruth.
-- By Kenneth Jones
