The Broadway Past Re-Opens
A friend forwarded this to me, and I’m sure that some people here would at least want to know about it.
It’s an online benefit for the “Billy Rose Theatre Division” of the New York Public Library. They’re going to present "never-before seen" musical theater videos from their archives and also have re-creations of numbers from a long list of major talents participating.
While the re-creations with all of names they listed sounds tremendous – it’s the material that the New York Public Library has in its archives that I’m most anticipating. I’ve long known that there are great archives that exist in New York of pretty much ALL musicals that were videotaped/filmed which aren’t available to the public, but only for scholarly research, and I can only hope their archives overlap in some ways with that. Or, in fact, is that very same archive.
The only thing I can’t figure out is why it’s streaming at 8 PM in the East…and 8 PM in the West, not 5 PM. (I’m not even sure how they’d manage that, unless their software can determine the location of one’s service provider where you’ve logged in from, and can block certain areas according to time. But why would you even care to do that? And what time would it be for people in the Central time zone? Or internationally? It’ll probably be on the tickets. It’s not a big deal at all – 8 PM is fine -- just weird.)
Anyway, here’s the information they sent about the event (It’s pay what you want with a minimum of $19.31, the year the division opened.) Then, 24-48 hours before the June 23 event, they’ll send a follow-up email with log-in information. I'll include a link for ordering tickets at the end, as well.
The program will feature never-before-seen archival clips of original Broadway productions from the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive, including IN THE HEIGHTS, MUSIC MAN, BRING IN ‘DA NOISE, BRING IN ‘DA FUNK, SUNSET BOULEVARD, and more; interviews with emerging creatives to Broadway legends; and reconceived performances of musical theatre songs, including "A Trip to the Library," "Wheels of a Dream," "Another Hundred People," "Love Will Find a Way," "I’m Still Here," and more.
Featuring archival performances by Craig Bierko, Christian Borle, Andrea Burns, Glenn Close, Robin de Jesús, Christine Ebersole, Rupert Everett, Savion Glover, Marcia Gay Harden, Christopher Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Lansbury, Rebecca Luker, Bette Midler, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Kelli O’Hara, Karen Olivo, Meryl Streep, Paulo Szot, and more!
Featuring new performances and appearances by [and I've edited the very long list of performers, writers and directors] -- Annaleigh Ashford, Laura Benanti, Susan Birkenhead, Stephanie J. Block, Matthew Broderick, Jason Robert Brown, André De Shields, Harvey Fierstein, Joel Grey, Sheldon Harnick, Neil Patrick Harris, David Henry Hwang, John LaChiusa, Norman Lear, Baayork Lee, Sondra Lee, Priscilla López, Joanna Merlin, Ruthie Ann Miles, Rita Moreno, Bernadette Peters, Susan Stroman, Jeanine Tesori, and Ben Vereen.
You can find more information and how to get tickets here.
(And to be clear, because the information is not terribly so -- this event appears to be one stream only on that specific June 23 date. Not something that will be available online later. As for the time, they give those two times for the two, specific time zones, and I assume that when they send the follow-up information 24-48 hours in advance, it will give the exact time for the recipient wherever they'll be logging in from.)
All that aside, there is a longer version of the trailer embedded on the webpage above, but this is the one they have on YouTube.
Comments