Several composers best known for their theatre songs will take part in Songs of the Poets, which will be presented by The Other Side of Broadway, a project that gives exposure to the classical music written by established and emerging theatre composers.
Among the composers whose arts songs will be featured at the Sept. 23 and 30 performances are John (Cabaret, Chicago) Kander, Charles (Annie, Bye Bye Birdie) Strouse, Galt (Hair, Two Gentlemen of Verona) MacDermot, David (King Island Christmas, Nicolette & Aucassin) Friedman, Norman (You Might As Well Live, Lost Empires) Mathews, Richard Pearson (Golden Gate, Ladies in a Maze) Thomas and Elliot (Bittersuite: Songs of Experience, The Witch of Wall Street) Weiss. Singers for the two evenings will include soprano Kelly Ellenwood, who has starred in The Phantom of the Opera and A Christmas Carol, and baritone Peter Samuel, whose credits include Les Misérables, Parade and The Secret Garden. Barbara Irvine, who heads The Other Side of Broadway, will serve as the pianist and musical director, and Tom O'Horgan, who helmed the original Broadway production of Hair, will direct.
The program for the evening will feature the texts of several famed poets set to music. Attendees can expect to hear the words of Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Walt Whitman, Sullivan Ballou, William Blake, William Carlos Williams and Thomas Hardy.
The performances will begin at 7 PM at Danny's Skylight Room, which is located in New York City at 346 W. 46th Street. There is a $20 music charge and a $10 minimum; call (212) 265-8133. For more information, go to www.theothersideofbroadway.net.
—By Andrew Gans
