FUNNY GIRL to kick-off Keeping Scores concert series at BRT

 

Funny Girl, the classic 1964 Broadway musical that helped cement Barbra Streisand's place in theatrical history, will be the first show featured in Keeping Scores, a new series of Broadway musicals in concert, to be presented at Franklin's Boiler Room Theatre. Concerts in the series will be directed by Scott Logsdon (writer/director of the recent staged reading of An American Country Christmas Carol at the Boiler Room) with music direction by Jamey Green, a co-founder of BRT, and will be produced by Sondra Morton, director of operations for the professional theater located at The Factory in Franklin.

The announcement of the Keeping Scores concert series comes only days before Street Theatre Company unveils its much-anticipated Chess in Concert, (starring Boiler Room veterans Laura Matula, Jeffrey Williams, Alan Lee and Mike Baum) which runs February 25-27 at the company's Nashville venue.

“Credit should be given to Street Theatre Company for opening the doors to the presence of concert performance in Nashville theater,” Morton contends. “Scott and I are excited to be bringing a similar series to Williamson County – and, quite frankly, why not now? We have the performers, the space and the drive to create this concert series and we feel that it's something that will be valuable to Williamson County residents and the theater community.”

Funny Girl will be presented at the Boiler Room Theatre, April 29 and 30 at 8:00 p.m. and on Sunday, May 1 at 2:00 p.m. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased by calling (615) 794-7744.

The score of Funny Girl features lyrics by Bob Merrill and music by Jule Styne and a book by Isobel Lennart and introduced such songs that are now considered standards in the American Pop songbook, including “People,” “Don’t Rain On My Parade” and “I’m The Greatest Star.”

“Funny Girl has a fantastic score, but it is very rarely done because who can compete with Streisand's stamp on the role of Fanny Brice?” Logsdon asks. “It also has lavish and opulent Ziegfeld production numbers which are cost prohibitive to being done in a full production – but in a concert the focus can be on the amazing score. Funny Girl is a title that people know and using a dozen Fannys gives us a chance to announce that Keeping Scores is here!”

According to Logsdon, who has a lengthy resume that includes stints on Broadway, in national tours and at regional theaters throughout the country, “The Funny Girl concert will be similar to one produced in New York City for the Actor’s Fund where different stars including Bebe Neuwirth, Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel and Whoopi Goldberg split the role of Fanny Brice – each one performing one scene and/or song.”

The Keeping Scores presentation will feature 12 of Nashville’s favorite and most accomplished singing actresses in the role of Fanny Brice, including Erica Lee Cantrell, Joann Coleman, Cori Laemmel, Alex Maddox, Corrie Miller, Sondra Morton, Megan Murphy Chambers, Cathy Street and Laura Thomas Sonn. Additional casting will be announced soon.

“I can’t think of a more exciting title or group of remarkably talented people to work with on the first concert,” Logsdon says. “For a show to have any one of these women would be an event – but to have them all on one stage in one show will be musical theatre nirvana. It’s a great way to kick off the series with a well-known title since we hope to do other shows with equally amazing music that may not be as well known.”

“BRT is so excited to be bringing Keeping Scores to Franklin and Nashville,” Morton says. “Personally, this has been a project I have wanted to see done here since leaving New York City. We are honored and thrilled to have Broadway veteran Scott Logsdon as the force to see these concerts through. These will be projects that will be exciting for both performers and audiences."

According to Logsdon, “I've wanted to do a series of shows in concerts for a long time. I've worked at some theaters over the years and brought the idea up but none of the staffs had sensibilities that meshed with mine. I am a huge admirer of what BRT and Jamey and Sondra do. I had a joyous time with them on An American Country Christmas Carol. I was also so completely astonished at the amazing depth of the talent pool in Nashville during auditions that it made me think about the possibility of a concert series. So I brought it up and found out it was something that Sondra and Jamey had thought about doing over the years and it just all lined up.”

Morton agrees with Logsdon that timing and talent – and maybe even the stars – have lined up to enable Keeping Scores to come to life at this particular point in time: “In recent years, Nashville theater has really grown in regards to new materials, theaters and opportunities which has led us to believe that Nashville is ready to entertain the idea of a concert series.”

The Keeping Scores concerts will focus on shows with scores that are not likely to be produced locally in full-scale productions and will be modeled on the Encores series in New York. The shows will be presented as staged concerts and for some titles, the composers and/or people who were involved with the original productions will be present for talkbacks with the audience.

“Our intention,” Morton explains, “is to build a following with our Keeping Scores series. Keeping Scores is meant to create the opportunity for rarely performed musical scores to be heard and appreciated, for patrons and performers alike. Many musicals are often too big to be produced in local theaters, this is a way to honor those works.”

Titles under consideration for future presentation include: Aida, Amour, Anyone Can Whistle, The Apple Tree, Aspects of Love, The Baker’s Wife, Candide, Carnival!, City of Angels, Company, Dear World, Do I Hear A Waltz?, Fiorello!, Flora the Red Menace, Floyd Collins, Greenwillow, Grey Gardens, Grover’s Corner, High Fidelity, Kismet, Kiss of The Spider Woman, L'il Abner, The Light in the Piazza, A Little Night Music, Mack & Mabel, A Man of No Importance, A New Brain, Merrily We Roll Along, The Most Happy Fella, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Notre Dame De Paris, On The 20^th Century, 110 in the Shade, Pal Joey, Parade, Promises, Promises, Rags, Reefer Madness, The Robber Bridegroom, The Secret Garden, Showboat, Side Show, Sugar, Where’s Charley? and Zorba.

“There are so many wonderful shows out there beyond the tried and true titles like Oklahoma! The Music Man, etc. That is not a dig at those shows – they're great and we all love them or they would not be produced as much,” Logsdon says. “But you listen to the recordins of shows like The Baker's Wife, High Fidelity, Mack and Mabel, Merrily We Roll Along, Floyd Collins, Rags or Anyone Can Whistle, and you wonder how on earth shows witih scores that are keepers front and center. It might be hard to mount a fully realized production of a little-known title like Side Show or Amour and find an audience for a lengthy run – but doing them for a weekend means these jewels will be heard. We'll mix in some rarely done titles that are not off the beaten path with lesser known titles.”