Smokey Joe's Cafe, the hit Broadway revue of Leiber and Stoller's classic rock, opens the season at Palo Alto's TheatreWorks, playing June 19-July 14. Linda Goodrich, who choreographed the world premiere of Everything's Ducky, will direct and choreograph.
Smokey Joe's Cafe collects Lieber and Stoller's greatest hits from the 1950's and 1960's and strings them together in a fast-moving, song and-dance trip through early rock 'n' roll history. The original Broadway show ran for five years at the Virginia Theatre on the strength of such numbers as "Hound Dog," "On Broadway," "Stand By Me" and "Jailhouse Rock."
Featured in Smokey Joe's Cafe are Jennifer Allen (Broadway's Guys and Dolls, in which she replaced Faith Prince and City of Angels), Kyra Da Costa (fresh from playing Nehebka in Aida on Broadway), Nicole Ruth Snelson (Broadway's Annie Get Your Gun) and Bobby Daye (Broadway's Smokey Joe's Cafe, Everything's Ducky). Also in the cast are Daniel Keeling, Gary E. Vincent, Carleton Alexander, Erwin Urbi and C. Kelly Wright.
Tickets are $20-$45. The Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts is located at Castro and Mercy Streets in Mountain View. For tickets, call (650) 903-6000. TheatreWorks is on the web at http://www.theatreworks.org.
— By Christine Ehren