A Grand Night For Singing
1992 Original Production
A Grand Night For Singing
1992 Original Production
4 Thumbs Up From The New York Times
"Splendid!"
- MEL GUSSOW
"A radiant revue - A musical masterstroke!"
- STEPHEN HOLDEN
"Invogorating, smart ideas, wit and vocal prowess!"
- FRANK RICH
"Subtle, charming, playful and inventive!"
- DAVID RICHARDS
Cheers From Time Magazine to The Hollywood Reporter
"A loving retrospective of Rodgers & Hammerstein songs."
WILLIAM A. HENRY III, TIME magazine
"The best thing of its kind. My only quarrell with the show is that it's too short; it leaves you begging for more!"
JOHN SIMON, NEW YORK magazine
"Something terrific - A Grand Night for Singing! And it is!"
CLIVE BARNES, NEW YORK POST
"The show's a honey!"
ROBERT OSBORNE, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
"A smart, spiffy, fresh take on the formidable song writing team!"
JACQUES LESOURD, GANNETT WESTCHESTER NEWSPAPERS
"Oh, what a beautiful fifty years of musicals. Rodgers & Hammerstein at their lyrical best!"
AILEEN JACOBSON, NEW YORK NEWSDAY
"Winning!"
HOWARD KISSELL, DAILY NEWS
"This is as good as it gets!"
DAVID PATRICK STEARNS, USA TODAY
"Splendid...some enchanted evening!"
THE NEW YORKER
"Staged to produce delightful, unsuspected revelations; people will say I'm in love!"
ROSS WETZSTEON, THE VILLAGE VOICE
1992 Original Cast Archival Recording
Rainbow & Stars
presents
A Grand Night For Singing!
The Rodgers & Hammerstein Revue
Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of their Historic Collaboration
Starring
Victoria Clark, Jason Graae, Martin Vidnovic, Lynne Wintersteller, Karen Ziemba
Cello - Roberta Cooper
Lighting Design - Tim Flannery
Sound Design - Gary Penovich
Costume Coordinator - David Woolard
Public Relations & Press - David Lotz
General Manager - Bismark Irving
Musical Direction & Arrangements by
Fred Wells
Directed by
Walter Bobbie
Production Manager
Scott Perrin
Produced by
Gregory Dawson & Steve Paul
The New York Times
Sounds Around Town
Sounds Around Town
Rodgers and Hammerstein on revue
Romance at Rainbow
"A Grand Night for Singing!: The Rodgers and Hammerstein Revue," Rainbow and Stars, 65th floor, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, (212) 632-5000. Five of Broadway's finest younger voices Victoria Clark, Jason Graae, Lynne Wintersteller, Martin Vidnovic and Karen Ziemba - are featured in the sixth of the Rainbow and Stars revues honoring great American songwriters. Under the direction of Walter Bobbie, who plays Nicely Nicely Johnson in "Guys and Dolls," the mood shifts seamlessly from sweepingly romantic (Mr. Vidnovic's "This Nearly Was Mine") to playfully inventive ("Shall We Dance?" as a comic skit). Warhorses like "Some Enchanted Evening" and "You'll Never Walk Alone" are omitted in favor of lesser-known but worthy numbers from shows like "Cinderella. "The gorgeous piano and cello accompaniments are a model for contemporary cabaret performance. Shows are at 8:30 arid 10:30 P.M. today and tomorrow. There is a $35 cover charge, with no minimum.
STEPHEN HOLDEN
TIME magazine
A Tuneful Happy Anniversary
NO BROADWAY MUSICAL HAS INFLUENCED the form more than Oklahoma!, which integrated songs and dances into narra- tive. Its debut 50 years ago this month launched the partnership of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, who went on to Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music. Their words and music are lovingly recalled in A GRAND NIGHT FOR SINGING, a revue at New York City's premier cabaret, Rain- bow & Stars. The show is one of hun- dreds of ways the anniversary is being marked-from productions, concerts, CDs and books to a museum show of set designs in New York City, a gathering of original Oklahoma! cast members in New Haven, Connecticut; and the release of a U.S. stamp in, aptly, Oklahoma City.
The Village Voice
Odd Couple
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein-seldom outside opera has such a melodic genius collaborated with such a prosaic hack. Larry Hart challenged Rod- gers to expand his Jerome Kern- based vocabulary, to take greater and greater musical risks. to range widely from the wistful to the acerbic, from the delicate to the exuberant, from the lyrical to the raucous, while Hammerstein, un- der the guise of creating a new form of native operetta. merely provided a context for gingham homilies, inspirational exhorta- tions, and meretricious Ameri- cana that Rodgers's transcendent talents, not always successfully, had to stubbornly resist.
But don't miss A Grand Night for Singing!, the sixth in the Rain- bow & Stars sublime series cele- brating the great Broadway song- writers, even if you find Hammerstein's pious complacen- cies insufferable-there can't be a better way to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Oklahoma!, and whoever his partner. Rodgers remains one of our three greatest theater composers.
I must confess that I went to A Grand Night expecting to like it least in the series and found my- self liking it best-and not only because they didn't sing "The Sound of Music" and "You'll Never Walk Alone." Director Walter Bobbie, on a brief vaca- tion from rocking the boat in Guys and Dolls, has come up with an evocative piano and cello ac- companiment, selected the songs nicely nicely, assigned them with discriminating daring ("If I Loved You," one of Hammerstein's rare lapses into talent. going to the "comic" performer), staged them to produce delightful, unsuspected revelations ("Shall We Dance?" as a kind of vaudeville skit), and, most of all, assembled a superb cast.
Victoria Clark. Faith Prince's understudy down on 45th Street, possesses both an Ado Annie perkiness and a gritty poignancy. Jason Graae is boisterously fey, as always, but also makes the most of his opportunity with the pain- fully touching Love, Look Away." For the requisite rich Rodgers baritone. Martin Vidno- vic is ideal, and Lynne Winter- steller sings both ingenue and character songs with a lovely zest. And as for Karen Ziémba-well, whatever I write, people will say I'm in love.
By Ross Wetzsteon
New York Magazine
Nightlife
"A Grand Night for Singing: The Rodgers & Hammerstein Revue": This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the collaboration between the two musical greats - it all began with the Broadway premiere of Oklahoma!, on March 31, 1943. Right now, their music is being celebrated at Rainbow & Stars by a cast of pros. through April 10.
By Richard Davis Story
Daily News
"TAKING IN 'IT'S A GRAND NIGHT FOR SINGING"
A Rainbow & Stars show made Hammerstein musicals, is like reliving a sunnier, more confident Broadway period. So, in spite of a few lapses, I found myself in tune with the five- member cast (Martin Vidnovic, Victoria Clark, Ja- son Graae, Lynne Wintersteler and Karen Ziemba) and these wonderful songs. I suppose I was seeing the past through rose-colored glasses, having attended all R&H opening nights. The AA first, of course, 50 years back this month, was "Oklahoma!" arriving unheralded from Boston to drop its first-night curtain on an audience stunned after hearing one incomparable musical number after another.
The New York Observer
On the Town With Rex Reed
The Rodgers and Hammerstein Revue, the sixth tribute to composers in the cabaret series at Rainbow and Stars, mercifully spares us "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' and "Some Enchanted Evening," focusing instead on lesser-known works like the haunting "So Far" (from Allegro) and a se- ries of delightful but seldom-heard gems from the TV version of Cinderella. It's a patchwork quilt affair, with a brassy bit from State Fair to a brightly refurbished "Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair," arranged for a trio as a rhythmic blues with torchy overtones. Fred Wells, who did all the original vocal arrangements and played piano for the Wiseguys, is a witty and accomplished musical director, and I like the fact that this show features fewer excerpts and more full-length versions of songs. It's also bracing to see Jason Graae, a staple cast member at these events, in a new light. He has developed a sturdy and reliable reputation as a clown with a big voice, but when he sings the gorgeous ballad "Love, Look Away" (from Flower Drum Song), he reveals new depths of insight and romantic lyrical intensity.
A New, Commemorative U.S. Postage Stamp
TV Coverage of The R&H 50th Anniversary
CBS Sunday Morning
NBC Today Show
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