Robert Russell News

The PS Classics cast recording of the critically-acclaimed Broadway revival of Finian's Rainbow will be in stores Tuesday, February 2.

SOUTH PACIFIC is set to play the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines from May 18th to May 23rd as part of the Willis Broadway Series.

The Lyric Stage, Dallas County's only locally produced professional musical theater company, presents SHOW BOAT in concert with a full orchestra in Carpenter Hall. Performances are January 28-31, 2010.

Rod Gilfry, who had taken a hiatus from SOUTH PACIFIC to play Captain Von Trapp in Paris' Theatre du Chatelet's THE SOUND OF MUSIC, will return to his role as 'Emile de Becque' on January 19 when the next leg of the SOUTH PACIFIC tour makes its stop in Melbourne, Florida.

The Lyric Stage, Dallas County's only locally produced professional musical theater company, presents SHOW BOAT in concert with a full orchestra in Carpenter Hall. Performances are January 28-31, 2010.

Bob Boyett and NETworks Presentations announce casting for the Chicago area engagement of the National Tour of The Lincoln Center Theater Production of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein's prize-winning musical SOUTH PACIFIC, directed by Bartlett Sher. The Tony Award-winning production will play the Rosemont Theatre for a limited one-week engagement Nov. 24 - 29, 2009.

Lincoln Center Theater, in association with Bob Boyett and NETworks Presentations, presents a new production of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein's prize-winning musical SOUTH PACIFIC, directed by Bartlett Sher.

Bob Boyett and NETworks Presentations announce casting for the Chicago area engagement of the National Tour of The Lincoln Center Theater Production of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein's prize-winning musical SOUTH PACIFIC, directed by Bartlett Sher. The Tony Award-winning production will play the Rosemont Theatre for a limited one-week engagement Nov. 24 - 29, 2009.

Lincoln Center Theater, in association with Bob Boyett and NETworks Presentations, presents a new production of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein's prize-winning musical SOUTH PACIFIC, directed by Bartlett Sher.

Bob Boyett and NETworks Presentations are proud to bring the National Tour of The Lincoln Center Theater Production of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein's prize-winning musical SOUTH PACIFIC, directed by Bartlett Sher, to Greenville, SC, for an engagement at the Peace Center on November 17 - 22.

The Tony-winning director is helming this weekend's production of Girl Crazy at City Center.

The National Touring Company of Rodgers & Hammerstein's SOUTH PACIFIC will be led by Rod Gilfry (Emile de Becque) and Carmen Cusack (Nellie Forbush), with Anderson Davis (Lt. Cable), Matthew Saldivar (Luther Billis), Keala Settle (Bloody Mary), Gerry Becker (Capt. Brackett), Peter Rini (Cmdr. Harbison), Sumie Maeda (Liat), Rusty Ross (Professor) and original 2008 Broadway cast member Genson Blimline (Stewpot).

Bob Boyett and NETworks Presentations are proud to bring the National Tour of The Lincoln Center Theater Production of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein's prize-winning musical SOUTH PACIFIC, directed by Bartlett Sher, to Greenville, SC, for an engagement at the Peace Center on November 17 - 22.

'If musical theatre doesn't address important issues, who will?,' read a t-shirt I spotted at the Broadway Flea Market several years ago. And while America's theater history is rich with important issue addressing musical dramas like Show Boat and Ragtime, when Finian's Rainbow hit Broadway in 1947 it was pretty much unheard of for a musical comedy to have its main plot centered on attacking institutionalized racism.

Although operetta wasn't completely on its way out when Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II brought Music In The Air to Broadway in 1932, the popularity of the genre was indeed waning a bit as jazzy and witty scores by the likes of George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart and Cole Porter dominated the decade's theatre music. But the creators of Show Boat, just five years earlier, weren't done quite yet.

With all due respect to Kelli O'Hara, Paulo Szot, director Bartlett Sher and even Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan, the real star of the Lincoln Center revival of South Pacific is orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett, whose sublime work from the original 1949 production is now enchanting contemporary audiences.

With three different directors placing their marks on the material during its pre-Broadway tryouts and two actors who were not quite up to the vocal demands of the dramatic score playing the leads (Shirley Booth and Melvyn Douglas), Marc Blitzstein (music and lyrics) and Joseph Stein's (book) Juno, based on Sean O'Casey's Juno And The Paycock, limped into the Winter Garden in March of 1959 following high expectations (West Side Story had been ousted from the theatre to make room for it) and quickly closed up shop two weeks later.

1959 was a heck of a good year for Broadway overtures.  The majestic trumpet fanfare and lowdown bump and grind of Gypsy's is generally regarded as the best in musical theatre, but there was also the rousingly rhythmic curtain-raiser to Fiorello! and, my personal favorite, Philip J. Lang's beautiful interpretation of Bob Merrill's music for Take Me Along, which touches on so many moods of the show while continually building the toe-tapping climax of The catchy title tune.

Bob Boyett and NETworks Presentations announce casting for the National Tour of The Lincoln Center Theater Production of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein's prize-winning musical SOUTH PACIFIC, directed by Bartlett Sher playing the Belk Theater in Charlotte Nov. 10-15 as part of the Duke Energy Broadway Lights series.

Bob Boyett and NETworks Presentations announce casting for the Chicago area engagement of the National Tour of The Lincoln Center Theater Production of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein's prize-winning musical SOUTH PACIFIC, directed by Bartlett Sher. The Tony Award-winning production will play the Rosemont Theatre for a limited one-week engagement Nov. 24 - 29, 2009.