Leslie Uggams Brings CLASSIC UGGAMS to 54 Below, Now thru 11/17

Tony and Emmy Award winner Leslie Uggams will make her 54 Below debut with the show tonight, November 13-17 in Manhattan.

Classic Uggams features favorite songs from Uggams’ decades-spanning career that she and other notable entertainers like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin made famous. Ms. Uggams brings audiences back to the nightclub heyday when she performed at Harrah’s in Reno with the likes of Bill Cosby and Sammy Davis, Jr. She also sings a moving tribute to her lifelong friend the late Marvin Hamlisch who wrote for her while they attended the Professional Children’s School as teenagers.

Highlights include new arrangements of “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “One,” and “What I Did for Love.” Uggams also tells the real story behind her infamous flub of the lyrics to “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” that she sang during a live broadcast of “A Capital Fourth” from the Mall in Washington, DC. She gamely recreates the hilarious gaffe that redefines the term “show biz trouper.”

The star of such Broadway shows as Hallelujah, Baby!, Jerry’s Girls, On Golden Pond, Thoroughly Modern Millie and Anything Goes has co-written Classic Uggams with Michael Bush, who also directs. Bush is a founding partner in Tritone Productions, a new company dedicated to developing new work. He is also the former artistic director of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's Cabaret and Performance Conference and Manhattan Theatre Club. Bush has directed Uggams in the Broadway-bound Stormy Weather: The Lena Horne Story and Uptown Downtown, her acclaimed one-woman musical autobiography which she performs across the country.

For this new show Uggams is accompanied by a swinging four-piece band: Steve Bargonetti, guitar; Ray Kilday, bass; Buddy Williams, drums; and Don Rebic, piano. Rebic also serves as music director.

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