Huntington Theatre Announces LENNY & STEVE A Tribute Concert 9/18

Olivier Award winner, West End and Broadway star, and director of the Huntington's Merrily We Roll Along, Maria Friedman brings her critically acclaimed solo show Lenny & Steve: The Music of Bernstein & Sondheim to the Huntington for a one-night only concert event on Monday, September 18 at 7:30pm, accompanied by her longtime collaborator, musical director and pianist Jason Carr. This special cabaret will take place at the Avenue of the Arts / Huntington Avenue Theatre. Tickets are now on sale and start at $25.

Exploring the genius of Broadway songwriters Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, three-time Olivier Award winner Ms. Friedman will compare and contrast songs from their separate catalogs, as well as their joint masterpiece West Side Story. This beguiling evening of songs and anecdotes includes "New York, New York," "I Can Cook, Too," "Losing My Mind," and "Send in the Clowns."

Lenny & Steve: The Music of Bernstein & Sondheim played to sold out houses in London this spring, and will play at New York's esteemed 54 Below immediately following the Huntington performance. The Guardian says, "Maria Friedman has long been Britain's most celebrated Sondheim exponent," and The Independent calls Friedman "one of Sondheim's foremost interpreters." BritishTheatre.com raves, "You don't so much leave at the end of this concert, as sail away from it on a wave of euphoria."

The Huntington is also opening the 2017-2018 season with Maria Friedman's stunning London production of Merrily We Roll Along, which received universal rave reviews - the most five star reviews in West End history - as well as the Olivier Award for Best Musical and high praise from Stephen Sondheim himself who called it "the best production of Merrily We Roll Along I've seen." Travelling backwards in time over 30 years in the entertainment business, this cult favorite musical charts the relationships of close friends Franklin, Charley, and Mary, and features some of Sondheim's most beautiful songs, including "Good Thing Going," "Old Friends," and "Not a Day Goes By. The Independent called Friedman's production of Merrily We Roll Along "one of the great musical productions of this or any other era." Merrily We Roll Along begins Friday, September 8 and continues through October 15, 2017 at the Avenue of the Arts / Huntington Avenue Theatre.

TICKETS
Single tickets range from $25 - $75 and are on sale now; Huntington FlexPass holders may also redeem into this performance:

• online at huntingtontheatre.org;
• by phone at 617 266 0800; or
• in person at the Huntington Avenue Theatre Box Office, 264 Huntington Ave. and the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA Box Office, 527 Tremont St. in Boston's South End.

Select discounts apply:

• $5 off: seniors
• $10 off: subscribers
• $30 "35 Below" tickets for patrons 35 years old and younger (valid ID required)
• $20 student and military tickets (valid ID required)

ABOUT Maria Friedman & Jason Carr

Maria Friedman (Vocalist) made her directorial debut with her highly acclaimed production of Merrily We Roll Along which opened at the Menier Chocolate Factory in November 2012 and transferred to the West End in May 2013. The production won Best Musical at the Evening Standard Awards in 2013, Oliver Awards in 2014 (for which Ms. Friedman was also nominated for Best Director of a Musical), and the Critic's Circle Award in 2013. She went on to direct High Society at The Old Vic in 2015, which was equally well received and then directed Stepping Out which toured in 2016, opening in the West End in the spring of 2017. Ms. Friedman is best known as a three-time Olivier Award-winning star of the musical stage. The heart of her career has been centered around the love and work of her dear friend Stephen Sondheim. She has played Dot in Sunday in the Park with George at the National Theatre, Fosca in Passion at the Queen's Theatre (Olivier Award), Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd at the Royal Festival Hall with Bryn Terfel, and Mary in the original London production of Merrily We Roll Along at the Leicester Haymarket. In concert she has played Sally in Follies and both Charlotte and Petra in A Little Night Music. Ms. Friedman was honored to sing for Stephen Sondheim at his 80th birthday celebrations in New York and Washington, as well as at the special all-Sondheim BBC Prom. Her many international concert appearances include three sell-out seasons at New York's prestigious Café Carlyle, and many concerts with Michael Legrand and the late Marvin Hamlisch. Most recently, she premiered her new cabaret show Lenny and Steve with musical director Jason Carr at the Hippodrome's Matcham Room. Her most recent recording is Maria Friedman Sings the Great British Songbook (on Sepia Records). In addition to winning three Olivier Awards, she has received nine Olivier Award nominations and has won an Evening Standard Award.

Jason Carr (Musical Director/Pianist) is a composer, lyricist, orchestrator, and pianist. His long association with Maria Friedman includes her Olivier Award-winning shows By Special Arrangement, By Extra Special Arrangement, and Re-arranged, as well as her CDs Maria Friedman and Maria Friedman Sings the Great British Songbook. He has composed incidental music for over 50 plays at London's National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, and in the West End and on Broadway, and his orchestration credits includes the Menier Chocolate Factory's Sunday in the Park with George, La Cage aux Folles, and A Little Night Music (in the UK and on Broadway, winning the Drama Desk Award and two Tony Award nominations for Best Orchestrations). He also orchestrated PS Classics' restoration of Vernon Duke and Ogden Nash's Sweet Bye and Bye. He has accompanied many notable singers, including Elisabeth Welch, Betty Garrett, Kitty Carlisle Hart, Lorna Luft, Michael Ball, and Dame Felicity Lott with whom he toured internationally, and arranged, produced, and played on Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid's album You Are the Best Thing That Ever Has Happened to Me. He studied composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. After winning the 1988 Vivian Ellis Prize for Young Writers of Musicals, Jason was invited by Sir Peter Hall to compose the musical Born Again (Chichester Festival Theatre starring Mandy Patinkin and José Ferrer). As associate composer at Chichester from 2003 to2005, he wrote music and lyrics for two new musicals, The Water Babies and Six Pictures of Lee Miller (nominated British Composer Awards). His musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol has played throughout the UK, and his new musical Lockhart has just received a developmental production at Mountview Academy.

ABOUT THE Huntington Theatre Company

The Huntington Theatre Company is Boston's leading professional theatre and one of the region's premier cultural assets since its founding in 1982. Recipient of the 2013 Regional Theatre Tony Award, the Huntington brings together superb local and national talent and produces a mix of groundbreaking new works and classics made current to create award-winning productions. The Huntington runs nationally renowned programs in education and new play development and serves the local theatre community through its operation of the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. The Huntington has long been an anchor cultural institution of Huntington Avenue, the Avenue of the Arts, and will remain so on a permanent basis with plans to convert the Huntington Avenue Theatre into a first-rate, modern venue with expanded services to audiences, artists, and the community. Under the direction of Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Managing Director Michael Maso, the Huntington cultivates, celebrates, and champions theatre as an art form. For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org.

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