Ben Davis, Christopher Fitzgerald, Victor Garber,
David Garrison, Kelli O’Hara, and Bryce Pinkham
directed by Ted Sperling
conducted by James Bagwell
January 25 – 26, 2011 at 8pm at Alice Tully Hall
The Collegiate Chorale announces casting for Kurt Weill’s Knickerbocker Holiday, directed by Ted Sperling, performed for two nights in concert version on January 25 and 26, 2011 at 8pm at Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway, NYC. The cast will include Ben Davis, Christopher Fitzgerald, Victor Garber, David Garrison, Kelli O’Hara, and Bryce Pinkham. Ted Sperling will direct and James Bagwell will conduct. Single tickets start at $25 and are available online at www.collegiatechorale.org, or by phone at (646) 202-9623.
Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson teamed up for the first time to create this delightful romantic comedy. First performed in 1938 with Walter Huston in the role of Peter Stuyvesant, the work is one of Weill’s deft hybrid theater pieces which lies somewhere between operetta and musical theater, and also contains bits of political satire. The famous pop standard September Song first appeared in Knickerbocker Holiday. The cast includes Victor Garber as Stuyvesant, Ben Davis as Brom, Bryce Pinkham as Washington Irving, David Garrison as Tienhoven, Kelli O’Hara as love interest Tina, and Christopher Fitzgerald as faithful sidekick Tenpin. The production is directed by Ted Sperling and conducted by James Bagwell with The Collegiate Chorale and the American Symphony Orchestra.
The Collegiate Chorale’s 69th season continues with We Remember Them: Choral Music from the Camps and the Ghettos on March 10, 2011 at 7pm at Central Synagogue, and Something Wonderful – A Night of Broadway with Deborah Voigt, conducted by Ted Sperling,on May 19, 2011 at 7pm at Carnegie Hall. Deborah Voigt will be joined by featured guest artist Paulo Szot.
Single tickets for all concerts can be purchased by calling The Collegiate Chorale at (646) 202-9623 or by visiting www.collegiatechorale.org.
For more information, visit www.collegiatechorale.org.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Ben Davis Broadway: A Little Night Music with Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch (Count Carl Magnus), Les Misérables (Javert and Enjolras), Thoroughly Modern Millie (Trevor Graydon), Baz Luhrmann’s La Bohème (Marcello, Tony Honor). Tour: Spamalot (Galahad). Film/TV: Papageno in The Magic Flute directed by Kenneth Branagh, “The Good Wife,” “Numb3rs.” Guest artist with L.A. Philharmonic.
Christopher Fitzgerald earned Tony nominations for his work in Finian’s Rainbow and Young Frankenstein. He recently appeared in the all-male Williamstown Theatre Festival production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (as Pseudolus) and has also been seen in New York in Wicked, Amour and the Encores! concert presentation of Babes in Arms. He is currently appearing on Broadway in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, starring Al Pacino.
Victor Garber received four Tony nominations for his work in Damn Yankees, Lend Me a Tenor, Deathtrap and Little Me. He performed in the workshop of Sondheim’s Wiseguys and in the Tony Award-winning play Art. Stage credits also include Arcadia, The Devil’s Disciple, Noises Off and Sweeney Todd. Additionally, Victor garnered rave reviews in Sondheim’s Follies for City Center Encores! and Present Laughter at the Huntington Theatre. His film roles include Milk, Titanic, The First Wives Club, Sleepless in Seattle and Legally Blonde. For his work on television Mr. Garber has been nominated for six Emmys, including three for “Alias.” Other TV includes “Eli Stone,” “Justice,” “Laughter on the 23rd Floor,” “Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows,” Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man” and ABC’s musical version of “Annie.”
David Garrison was most recently on Broadway in Wicked. He received a Tony nomination for his role in A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine, and his other theatrical credits include Bells Are Ringing, Titanic, The Pirates of Penzance, Torch Song Trilogy, I Do! I Do!, Randy Newman’s Faust, Merrily We Roll Along and You Never Know. His television credits are numerous and include “Murphy Brown,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Married with Children,” “L.A. Law” and “Law & Order.”
Kelli O’Hara was Tony-nominated for her performances in South Pacific, The Pajama Game and The Light in the Piazza. O’Hara’s other Broadway credits include Jekyll & Hyde, Follies, Sweet Smell of Success and Dracula, the Musical. She was also seen in the Reprise! staging of Sunday in the Park with George. O’Hara’s debut solo recording, “Wonder in the World,” is available on the Ghostlight Records label.
Bryce Pinkham Broadway: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Off-Broadway: Orphans’ Home Cycle (Signature Theater/Hartford Stage); Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Public Lab) Regional: A Funny Thing Happened…, Our Town, Beyond Therapy (Williamstown); A View From The Bridge (Guthrie Theater); All’s Well That Ends Well, Woman Of No Importance (Yale Rep); The Just, Much Ado About Nothing (Chautauqua Theatre Co.); Dublin Carol (Nora Theatre); TV: “God In America,” “The Good Wife.” Awards: Oliver Thorndike Acting Award and Lotte Lenya Singing Scholarship. Bryce is a founding member of New Theater House. Education: M.F.A., Yale School of Drama; B.A., Boston College.
Ted Sperling won the 2005 Tony and Drama Desk Awards for his orchestrations of The Light in the Piazza, for which he was also music director. Broadway credits as music director / conductor / pianist include: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Full Monty, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Angels in America, My Favorite Year, Falsettos, Drood, Les Miserables, Roza and Sunday In the Park With George. Mr. Sperling was also an original cast member of the Broadway musical Titanic. Off-Broadway credits as music director include: A Man of No Importance, Wise Guys, A New Brain, Saturn Returns, Floyd Collins, Falsettoland, and Romance in Hard Times. As a stage director, his credits include:Charlotte: Life? Or Theater? and Striking 12, as well as a revival of Lady in the Dark starring Andrea Marcovicci. Mr. Sperling conducted the musical scores for the films The Manchurian Candidate and Everything Is Illuminated, and directed the short musical film Love, Mom, starring Tonya Pinkins.
The mission of The Collegiate Chorale, led by Music Director James Bagwell, is to enrich its audiences through innovative programming and exceptional performances of a broad range of vocal music featuring a premier choral ensemble. Founded in 1941 by the legendary conductor Robert Shaw, The Chorale has established a preeminent reputation for its interpretations of the traditional choral repertoire, vocal works by American composers, and rarely heard operas-in-concert, as well as for commissions and premieres of new works by today’s most exciting creative artists. Among the many guest artists with whom The Chorale has performed in recent years include: Bryn Terfel, Nathan Gunn, Victoria Clark, Stephanie Blythe, Renée Fleming, Thomas Hampson, and Deborah Voigt. Last season’s highlights included the world premiere two-act concert version of Ricky Ian Gordon’s opera The Grapes of Wrath at Carnegie Hall. In addition to The Chorale’s presentations, the chorus is performing in five programs during the American Symphony Orchestra’s 2010-11 season and will return to Verbier in the summer of 2011, and will perform with the Israel Philharmonic in Salzburg and Israel in July 2012.
Music Director James Bagwell maintains an active schedule throughout the United States as a conductor of choral, operatic, and orchestral music. He has recently been named Principal Guest Conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra in New York and is Director of the Music Program at Bard College. At Bard SummerScape, he has led numerous theatrical works, most notably Copland’s The Tender Land, which received unanimous praise from The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Opera News. He frequently appears as guest conductor for orchestras around the country and abroad, including the Jerusalem Symphony, Tulsa Symphony, and the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. He has also prepared The Concert Chorale of New York for performances with the American Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Mostly Mozart Festival, broadcast nationally in 2006 on Live from Lincoln Center. He has trained choruses for a number of major American and international orchestras and worked with noted conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Louis Langrée, Leon Botstein, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Raymond Leppard, James Conlon, Jesús López-Cobos, Erich Kunzel, Leon Fleischer, and Robert Shaw
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