Photo:
Poster for Smokey Joe’s Café. Courtesy of Tacoma Little Theatre.
A
preview
Published
in the Weekly Volcano, April28, 2016
Smokey Joe's Cafe is a musical revue showcasing 39 pop standards by the great songwriting
team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. It’s rock and roll; it’s rhythm and blues; it’s the song track of the 1950s and early ’60s
with dancing and costumes but no story line or dialogue.
When it played on
Broadway 20 years ago it won five Tony awards, including Best Musical, and the
next year the original Broadway cast recording, Smokey Joe's Cafe: The Songs Of
Leiber And Stoller, copped
a Grammy for Best Musical Show Album. The show became Broadway’s longest running musical revue, and over the past two decades
has continued to thrill audiences of all ages in community theaters and school
performances. Unbelievably, it has never played in Tacoma, but in May it is
coming to Tacoma Little Theatre with a nine-person cast under the direction of
Micheal O’Hara and a six-piece band directed by Terry O'Hara.
The 39 songs are
presented by various members of the cast in different combinations, with no
dialogue. There are novelty songs ("Charlie
Brown"), romantic ballads ("Spanish Harlem"), and
infectious melodies ("There Goes My Baby"), and the great standard "Stand by Me," with music and lyrics by Ben
E. King in collaboration with Leiber and
Stoller.
Among the many
rock classics featured in Smokey Joe’s
are such hits as “Yakety Yak,” “On Broadway,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Fools Fall in
Love,” “Young Blood,” “Kansas City,” and “Poison Ivy” — a tiny teaser of what’s
in store for Tacoma audiences.
Director
O'Hara is a mainstay in Tacoma theaters. He has performed in countless shows including
the charming Six Dance Lessons in Six
Weeks with his lovely wife, Sharry O’Hare, and also with his wife the
two-person Love Letters at Lakewood
Playhouse. He also played Dr. Jekyll in Jekyll
and Hyde at Lakewood Playhouse, and was the engineer in Miss Saigon at Tacoma Musical Playhouse.
As a director at TLT he has helmed Lend
me a Tenor, Annie, and Always Patsy Cline.
“It’s all music and dance,” O’Hara says. “It’s really
just a musical revue spectacular of Leiber
and Stoller music, with songs from Elvis to the Coasters and the Drifters. One
of the nice things is everybody in the cast is a fresh face. None have
performed on the TLT stage. And it’s a mixed-race cast with five blacks, one
Hawaiian and three Caucasians.”
TLT Managing Artistic Director Chris Serface says, "This is an amazing show that has not been performed by any Tacoma theatre. It is a beautiful celebration of the Leiber and Stoller songbook. I have always enjoyed the show, and felt that Tacoma should have the chance to see it. The right creative team was available so I knew it was time. You will recognize every song and be amazed by the dancing."
TLT Managing Artistic Director Chris Serface says, "This is an amazing show that has not been performed by any Tacoma theatre. It is a beautiful celebration of the Leiber and Stoller songbook. I have always enjoyed the show, and felt that Tacoma should have the chance to see it. The right creative team was available so I knew it was time. You will recognize every song and be amazed by the dancing."
Singing and
dancing in the show will be: Melanie Gladstone, Ashanti Proctor, Jermaine
Lindsay, Ashley Jackson, Nancy Hebert, Eric Clausell, Bruce Haasl, Loucas Curry,
and
Kawika Huston.
Kawika Huston.
Smokey Joe’s Cafe, 7:30 p.m. Friday
and Saturday and 2:00 p.m. Sunday, May 20-June, $22-$26, Tacoma Little Theatre,
210 N “I” St., Tacoma, 253.272.2281, www.tacomalittletheatre.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment