Simply Broadway: 18 Favorite Selections from Classic Broadway Musicals (Simply Series)
Come for the astonishing 2,pound foot puppet, stay for the wildly impressive choreography and vision.
George Gershwin - Wikipedia
Mean Girls Musical, original Opened: April 8, When the movie Mean Girls hit the screen in , it put cliquey high-school culture under a microscope. The pumped up energy makes for a fun night at the theatre that will leave your brood smiling and singing. Received with raves, the show is best for families with tweens and above—the thunderstorm and Papa Ge, Demon of Death, may be a tad frightening for the tiniest viewers. A minute sung-through musical, the jubilant score will have your family singing and rejoicing all the way home.
The Lion King Musical, original Opened: The African chants added specifically for Broadway plus the costumes, maskwork, and storytelling techniques will expose kids and adults to other cultures. From its timeless coming-of-age story to the bond between father and son, from the contemporary choreography to the awe-inspiring spectacle as the Pridelands of Africa emerge onstage, The Lion King is unlike any other theatrical experience—one the whole family will treasure. The Phantom of the Opera Musical, original Opened: Directed by the legendary Hal Prince, the musical is the ultimate in romance.
Having earned ten Tony nominations in , taking home Best Musical, the production is as fresh as it was when it first opened. The masked Phantom may be a tad intimidating to tiny theatregoers, but older elementary kids and above will find themselves enthralled in the love story, the lush costumes, and music.
A feat in physical comedy and stagecraft, The Play That Goes Wrong shows what happens when, well, everything that could go wrong onstage does. From simple gags to major stunts, the show has audiences belly-laughing night after night. No one is too young to see this show! The Prom Musical, original Opened November 15, When a teenager is banned from her high school prom for wanting to bring her girlfriend, brassy Broadway stars Dee Dee, Barry, and friends descend on the small Indiana town to teach everyone some old-fashioned kick ball change.
Starring Tony winner Beth Leavel , there'd plenty in the show for the adults and their youngsters, including an always-timely message of acceptance. Your kids will live vicariously through the students at Horace Green who follow their substitute teacher, Dewey Finn, to create a band worthy of winning Battle of the Bands. Trust us, you want to be with the band. Waitress Musical, original Opened: April 24, With an all-female lead creative team, this is the female empowerment show your daughters and sons need to see. Moishe, faced with compulsory military service if he remained in Russia, moved to America as soon as he could afford to.
Once in New York, he changed his first name to Morris.
19 Broadway Shows Best for Families
Gershowitz lived with a maternal uncle in Brooklyn, working as a foreman in a women's shoe factory. His birth certificate identifies him as Jacob Gershwine, with the surname pronounced 'Gersh-vin' in the Russian and Yiddish immigrant community.
He had just one given name, contrary to the American practice of giving children both a first and middle name. He was named after his grandfather, a one time Russian army mechanic. He soon became known as George, and changed the spelling of his surname to 'Gershwin' about the time he became a professional musician; other family members followed suit.
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The family lived in many different residences, as their father changed dwellings with each new enterprise in which he became involved. Mostly, they grew up around the Yiddish Theater District. George and Ira frequented the local Yiddish theaters, with George occasionally appearing onstage as an extra. George lived a usual childhood existence for children of New York tenements: Until , he cared nothing for music, when as a ten-year-old he was intrigued upon hearing his friend Maxie Rosenzweig's violin recital.
At around the same time, George's parents had bought a piano for lessons for his older brother Ira, but to his parents' surprise, and Ira's relief, it was George who spent more time playing it. Although his younger sister Frances was the first in the family to make a living through her musical talents, she married young and devoted herself to being a mother and housewife, thus surrendering any serious time to musical endeavors.
Having given up her performing career, she settled upon painting as a creative outlet, which had also been a hobby George briefly pursued. Arthur Gershwin followed in the paths of George and Ira, also becoming a composer of songs, musicals, and short piano works.
George Gershwin
With a degree of frustration, George tried various piano teachers for some two years circa. Until his death in , Hambitzer remained Gershwin's musical mentor and taught him conventional piano technique, introduced him to music of the European classical tradition, and encouraged him to attend orchestral concerts. In , Gershwin left school at the age of 15 and found his first job as a " song plugger ". His employer was Jerome H.
It earned him 50 cents. He produced dozens, if not hundreds, of rolls under his own and assumed names pseudonyms attributed to Gershwin include Fred Murtha and Bert Wynn. He also recorded rolls of his own compositions for the Duo-Art and Welte-Mignon reproducing pianos. As well as recording piano rolls, Gershwin made a brief foray into vaudeville , accompanying both Nora Bayes and Louise Dresser on the piano.
In he scored his first big national hit with his song, " Swanee ", with words by Irving Caesar. Al Jolson , a famous Broadway singer of the day, heard Gershwin perform "Swanee" at a party and decided to sing it in one of his shows. In the late s, Gershwin met songwriter and music director William Daly. The two collaborated on the Broadway musicals Piccadilly to Broadway and For Goodness' Sake , and jointly composed the score for Our Nell This was the beginning of a long friendship. Daly was a frequent arranger, orchestrator and conductor of Gershwin's music, and Gershwin periodically turned to him for musical advice.
In , Gershwin composed his first major classical work, Rhapsody in Blue , for orchestra and piano.
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It subsequently went on to be his most popular work, and established Gershwin's signature style and genius in blending vastly different musical styles in revolutionary ways. Since the early s, Gershwin frequently worked with the lyricist Buddy DeSylva. Together they created the experimental one-act jazz opera Blue Monday , set in Harlem. It is widely regarded as a forerunner to the groundbreaking Porgy and Bess. In the mids, Gershwin stayed in Paris for a short period of time, during which he applied to study composition with the noted Nadia Boulanger , who, along with several other prospective tutors such as Maurice Ravel , rejected him.
They were afraid that rigorous classical study would ruin his jazz -influenced style. This work received mixed reviews upon its first performance at Carnegie Hall on December 13, , but it quickly became part of the standard repertoire in Europe and the United States. In , Gershwin was contracted by Fox Film Corporation to compose the score for the movie Delicious. Only two pieces were used in the final film, the five-minute "Dream Sequence" and the six-minute "Manhattan Rhapsody", which in expanded form was later published as the Second Rhapsody.
Gershwin became infuriated when the rest of the score was rejected by Fox Film Corporation , and it would be seven years before he worked in Hollywood again. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, and Ira Gershwin. Gershwin's first opera, Blue Monday , is a short one-act opera, which was not a financial success and has received only limited performances.
His most ambitious composition was Porgy and Bess , first performed in , based on the novel Porgy by DuBose Heyward , which he called a "folk opera", and it is now widely regarded as one of the most important American operas of the twentieth century.
Was it opera, or was it simply an ambitious Broadway musical? But the work has sort of always been outside category. With the exception of several minor speaking roles, all of the characters are African-American. The music combines elements of popular music of the day, with a strong influence of African-American music, of the period, with techniques typical of opera, such as recitative , through-composition and an extensive system of leitmotifs. Porgy and Bess contains some of Gershwin's most sophisticated music, including a fugue , a passacaglia , the use of atonality , polytonality and polyrhythm , and a tone row.
Even the "set numbers" of which " Summertime ", "I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'" and " It Ain't Necessarily So " are well known examples are some of the most refined and ingenious of Gershwin's compositions. For the performances, Gershwin collaborated with Eva Jessye , whom he picked as the musical director. The work was first performed in ; it was a box-office failure in the middle of the Great Depression. Gershwin's extended score, which would marry ballet with jazz in a new way, runs over an hour in length.
It took Gershwin several months to compose and orchestrate. Gershwin had a ten-year affair with composer Kay Swift , whom he frequently consulted about his music. The two never married, although she eventually divorced her husband James Warburg in order to commit to the relationship.
Swift's granddaughter, Katharine Weber, has suggested that the pair were not married because George's mother Rose was "unhappy that Kay Swift wasn't Jewish". Early in , Gershwin began to complain of blinding headaches and a recurring impression that he smelled burning rubber. He was at the time working on other Hollywood film projects while living with Ira and his wife Leonore in their rented house in Beverly Hills. Leonore Gershwin began to be disturbed by George's mood swings and his seeming inability to eat without spilling food at the dinner table.
She suspected mental illness and insisted he be moved out of their house to lyricist Yip Harburg's empty quarters nearby, where he was placed in the care of his valet, Paul Mueller. The headaches and olfactory hallucinations continued. Producers are Dori Berinstein and Bill Damaschke. After shocking their wives by winning a high profile jingle contest, they are catapulted out of Brooklyn and into the cutthroat world of Madison Avenue. Olivier nominee Stafford Arima directed with musical direction by James Sampliner.
A second reading was presented December 11, , directed by Michael Arden. Marion, which was scheduled to premiere in the U. K in summer before Broadway. The first New York developmental lab was held in March A second lab was held May-June , directed by Christopher Gattelli. Gattelli told Playbill in January that a Broadway production is still several seasons off.
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