2012-2013 Season
MOON GOES PLATINUM!
Twenty years! Amazing. Has it really been that long since 42nd Street Moon was founded? (It has.)
All those years ago, we began an experiment that turned into an adventure that turned into an ongoing community of audiences, actors, directors, designers, and administrators joined by a common love—musical theatre.
If jazz is the great American art form, musical theatre isn’t far behind. Throughout the first seven decades of the 20th century, show music and popular music were often one and the same thing. It has been a thrill for us to go on “archeological digs” as we discovered—and produced—forgotten shows that were the keystones of the success of great songwriters like Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, Yip Harburg, Dorothy Fields, John Kander and Fred Ebb, Jerry Herman, and many, many more. We’ve presented over 100 “uncommon musicals,” first in staged concerts and then evolving into fully staged intimate productions. We’ve done innumerable revues, salons, and galas that have celebrated Broadway’s greatest musical theatre creators. We recorded two original cast CDs (Something for the Boys and Leave it to Me) and a Kern anthology album. Our journey has taken us as far back as 1918 and as far forward as 2010.
How to celebrate? With a good laugh! The accent is on the comedy in musical comedy, as we turn again to two favorite songwriting teams and also spotlight writers whose work we’ve only touched upon.
We’ll have guest stars along the way—especially in our salon salute to Frank Loesser—but we have a special treat for our season finale. The brilliant comic singer-actor Jason Graae is joining us for the outrageously funny Little Me!
Won’t you join us for our platinum anniversary? It wouldn’t be a celebration without you!
Greg MacKellan Stephanie Rhoads
Artistic Director Producing Director
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May 1 – 19, 2013 Book by Neil Simon Jason Graae stars in the final show of the season LITTLE ME, the outrageously funny musical that NY critic Walter Kerr called “a blockbuster so genial it looks like a breeze.” A bright and effervescent Cy Coleman-Carolyn Leigh score highlights Patrick Dennis’ rags-to-riches tale of Belle Poitrine, who moves from the wrong side of the tracks in Venezuela, Illinois, to Hollywood fame and Southampton luxury. The hit songs include Real Live Girl, I’ve Got Your Number, On the Other Side of the Tracks, To Be a Performer. Sharon Rietkerk is featured opposite Graae as Belle Poitrine. |
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May 13 & 14, 2013 - 7 PM Music and Lyrics by Frank Loesser 42nd Street Moon celebrates one of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley’s greatest songwriters in a special event: The Frank Loesser Salon. During his thirty-year career, Loesser wrote great standards—Baby, It’s Cold Outside, Let’s Get Lost, Luck Be a Lady, Heart and Soul, On a Slow Boat to China, If I Were a Bell, Once in Love With Amy, I Believe in You, Standing on the Corner, Dolores, Big D, Inch Worm, Can’t Get Out of This Mood, They’re Either Too Young or Too Old, and scores for the musical comedies Guys and Dolls, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, Where’s Charley?, andThe Most Happy Fella. |
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October 3-21, 2012 Music by George Gershwin The season opens in style with George and Ira Gershwin's OF THEE I SING. With a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrrie Ryskind, this was the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, the Presidency, and the democratic process itself are all targets in this timeless farce. John P. Wintergreen's party runs on a "love platform," promising the candidate will marry the partner chosen for him at an Atlantic City beauty pageant. Instead he falls for a campaign press aide and the trouble begins. The superb Gershwin score includes Who Cares?, Love is Sweeping the Country, Of Thee I Sing, and Trumpeter, Blow Your Golden Horn. |
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October 31 - November 18, 2012 Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner The season continues with the West Coast Premiere of CARMELINA, with lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Burton Lane, and book by Lerner and Joseph Stein. Carmelina is the musical version of the film Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell, which is also the source of the hit Broadway musical, Mamma Mia! Carmelina played briefly on Broadway in 1979 and had two staged concerts at the York Theatre. In 1962, Carmelina Campbell, Italian “widow” of a non-existent soldier, is faced with the return of three American soldiers who liberated San Forino in WWII. One of them is the father of her daughter, Gia ... but she’s not sure which! The great score by team that did Royal Wedding and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever includes two standards, One More Walk Around the Garden and It’s Time for a Love Song, as well as Why Him?, Someone in April, I’m a Woman, and Love Before Breakfast. |
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November 28 - December 16, 2012 Book by John O'Hara For the holiday season, 42nd Street Moon offers the timeless Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart masterpiece, PAL JOEY. Joey Evans—the charming heel with big plans—is back to take Chicago for a wild ride as he schemes to get to the top of the nightclub business. Songs include such Rodgers & Hart classics as I Could Write a Book, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, You Mustn’t Kick it Around, Zip, and In Our Little Den of Iniquity. |
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April 3 – 21, 2013 This magical and beguiling musical of the beloved film Lili brings the world of Lili Daurier, puppeteer Paul Berthalet, roguish magician Marco, and all of their circus friends to the stage. By turns bright and colorful and dark and intimate as it explores the milieu of the Cirque de Paris, CARNIVAL sings with a glorious Bob Merrill score: Love Makes the World Go Round, Her Face, She’s My Love, Grand Imperial Cirque de Paris, and Mira. |
