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Broadway Close Up Turns Ten
Interviews with singer Liz Callaway and Kaufman Center Theater Wing director Sean Hartley
Liz Callaway
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2010 marks the 10th anniversary of the Kaufman Center’s Broadway Close Up series. Some of the stage’s greatest talents will be showcased in a two-month long celebration of the American musical and its contributors. This year’s schedule includes October 25th’s Off-Broadway Close Up, a fond look at the well-known Broadway shows that started Off-Broadway before they got their big break. Artists Tom Jones, Josh Grisetti, Christina Bianco, Donna English, Susan Blackwell, Christine Pedi, Jason Robinson, Christopher Sieber, Charles West and Tom Flagg are slated to perform pieces from musicals such as The Fantasticks, Dames at Sea and Godspell. Also in the program is a November 15 retrospective of the works of the late composer Jerome Kern (Showboat). Rebecca Luker, Kate Baldwin, Blickenstaff, Matthew Scott, Graham Rowat, and Colin Donnell will all pay tribute to Kern by singing some of his best-known songs.
There’s no doubt that all of the events in the series offer the viewer a rare glimpse of the Great White Way from not only the performer’s eyes, but also from the perspectives of the oft-overlooked composers and writers. However, the most anticipated of Broadway Close Up’s happenings is likely December 6th’s Bound for Broadway celebration. This year’s show will include a glimpse of two new musicals, as well as a look back at some of the past shows that have been featured, such as Next to Normal, The Drowsy Chaperone and Avenue Q.
Interview: Sean Hartley, directer of Kaufman Center’s theater wing
How did Broadway Close Up get started?
I think the genesis was that we had a theater wing that was becoming a larger part of the Kaufman Center, but we didn’t yet have a theater concert series, so the then-director of Merkin Hall, Vicki Margulies, and I decided to do a concert series as a collaborative venture together. We felt that since the Kaufman Center had such a strong commitment to musical theater in its education programs, why not expand that into our concert series?
Why have you chosen to honor Jerome Kern this year?
That’s a good question; Jerome Kern’s not around. Primarily we’re celebrating living, still working artists, but a few times in the past, we have celebrated artists who are not around. We did one season in which we did two (Broadway composer) Richard Rodgers concerts. To be honest about how this particular thing came up: I started by planning a two-concert series for Off-Broadway. We’re doing one concert this year, but originally I was going to do two concerts, one of which was going to be the commercial Off-Broadway production, and the other one was going to be a non-profit for institutions like Playwright’s Horizons and Lincoln Center. I’m going to do that concert with Ira Weissman and Andre Bishop, and it just turned out that this fall was not going to be a great time for them. So, I decided to split that series into one per year. That left an opening, and I’d been talking with David Loud, a really remarkable Broadway arranger, and he had a lot of passion for this particular material, and we decided it would be a nice color for the series. We largely do interviews with living people, but we want to be a little bit more far-reaching than than that. A lot of people don’t know Jerome Kern that well or, to some extent, they don’t always know that they know him, so we thought that this would be good. I can’t tell you too much about this concert because we want to keep it a surprise, but there’s a very special way the music is all being connected. It will make it very interesting.
Interview: Liz Callaway, the host of Bound for Broadway and an accomplished singer/actress herself, with performances in Merrily We Roll Along, Baby and many more.
How did you become involved with Broadway Close Up?
Sean Hartley, the producer of the series, called me up about seven or eight years ago and said, “Would you host? We need a host for Bound for Broadway.” He explained the concept and I said, “Sure.” I was a little unsure because I didn’t really know what to expect, but I did it and it went really well. Afterwords, he said, “That was it! Can you be the permanent host?” So I said, “Sure!” It’s very fun. It started off as a one-time thing but it’s sort of grown through the years.
What’s your favorite part about hosting Bound for Broadway?
It’s fun to talk to the writers about their process. And you get to see snippets of these new shows. I think the whole process is so interesting; how they come up with their ideas, the process of getting produced, because, obviously, it’s incredibly difficult to get a new show produced. Everyone’s stories are so different. I think it’s a very worthwhile evening. I mean, for an audience, I think it would be fascinating, because instead of people just getting up and singing songs, you really get to learn about the process.
It sounds like a great honor, being able to give everyone a sneak peek. Mr. Hartley says there are surprises we don’t want to give away.
This year’s show is going to be particularly good. This is going to be a really, really good show. And, I’m not going to give away the surprises either, but I think it’s going to be very special. It’s the 10th anniversary, so, it’s definitely a show that people should get their tickets for early.
The Broadway Close Up series runs until December 6. For tickets and more information, click here or call 212-501-3330.