Allison Blackwell

Allison Blackwell

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George Gershwin: Bidin' My Time 2020

This program is set among excerpts of letters and archival interviews with George Gershwin and his brother and lyricist Ira Gershwin, his longtime musical collaborator Kay Swift, and the legendary pianist Oscar Levant. The words of Todd Duncan and Anne Brown, the original Porgy and Bess, provide an intimate perspective on the creation of Gershwin’s “folk opera” and the invaluable contributions of its performers. Peppered among hits like “Embraceable You” and “Love Is Here To Stay” are pieces of essays written by George Gershwin in which he pondered and pontificated on the meaning of “jazz” and the definition of “music” itself. Asserting his constant effort to eschew genres, Gershwin wrote: “From any sound critical standpoint, labels mean nothing at all. Good music is good music, even if you call it ‘oysters.’”
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Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt: Simple Little Things 2020

60 years ago, on May 3, 1960, at the tiny Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village, The Fantasticks opened on the sparsest of budgets and ran uninterrupted for nearly 42 years, closing on January 13, 2002 after a record 17,162 performances. Its elegance and simplicity endured four decades of the chaotic world going “Round and Round” while its creators continued their evolution into several uptown successes. Including 110 In the Shade and I Do! I Do!, the jewel box of creativity that is the Jones and Schmidt collaboration is perhaps the most steadfast of its kind.
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Rodgers, Rodgers & Guettel: Statues and Stories 2020

The groundbreaking works of Richard Rodgers, most famously in his collaborations with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II, gave us the foundation of the modern musical form. But Rodgers also left a family lineage that has enriched the craft in abundant fashion. In a loose song cycle format, this program will weave his work with the charming and witty creations of daughter Mary Rodgers (Once Upon a Mattress) and the complex and extraordinary palette of grandson Adam Guettel (The Light in the Piazza, Floyd Collins), as we look toward the progression of musicals over the decades and into the future.