{"id":8221,"global_id":"www.thevillagetrip.com?id=8221","global_id_lineage":["www.thevillagetrip.com?id=8221"],"author":"1","status":"publish","date":"2023-07-10 04:32:54","date_utc":"2023-07-10 08:32:54","modified":"2023-08-18 08:02:01","modified_utc":"2023-08-18 12:02:01","url":"https:\/\/www.thevillagetrip.com\/event\/wonderful-town\/","rest_url":"https:\/\/www.thevillagetrip.com\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/8221","title":"Wonderful Town \u2013 Jamie Bernstein and Janis Siegel and friends in a seventieth anniversary celebration of Leonard Bernstein\u2019s great downtown musical","description":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
\n

A unique and intimate cabaret \u2013 featuring the Maestro\u2019s daughter Jamie Bernstein with Grammy-garlanded Janis Siegel, baritone Michael Kelly, and pianist Yaron Gershovsky, long-time musical director of The Manhattan Transfer. A glorious celebration of songs such as \u201cOhio,\u201d \u201cPass the Football,\u201d and \u201cOne Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man\u201d \u2013 and the stories behind them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy, what charm<\/em>
\nMy, what grace<\/em>
\nPoets and peasants on Waverly Place!\u201d<\/em><\/h4>\n

Wonderful Town<\/em> immortalized Greenwich Village, just as a later Leonard Bernstein musical immortalized the West Side of Manhattan. This unique and intimate cabaret \u2013 featuring writer and broadcaster Jamie Bernstein, with Grammy-garlanded chanteuse Janis Siegel, baritone Michael Kelly, and pianist Yaron Gershovsky \u2013 is a glorious celebration of songs such as \u201cOhio,\u201d \u201cPass the Football,\u201d and \u201cOne Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man,\u201d plus a surprise song famously left out of the original score. For good measure, this unique evening will also dip into more of the Maestro\u2019s Manhattan musicals, On the Town\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0West Side Story<\/em> \u2013 and Jamie will reveal some behind-the-scenes stories!<\/p>\n

Based on the 1940 play\u00a0My Sister Eileen<\/em>\u00a0by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov, and\u00a0The Short Stories<\/em>\u00a0of Ruth McKenney,\u00a0Wonderful Town<\/em>\u00a0was Leonard Bernstein\u2019s second salute to New York City. As with the first, On the Town<\/em>, Bernstein teamed up with lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Villagers who as cabaret artists had been fixtures at the nearby Village Vanguard. Rosalind Russell, who had earlier starred in the 1952 film of My Sister Eileen<\/em>, was cast again for the Broadway version as Ruth, and a 25-year-old Juilliard graduate and future TV star, Edie Adams, as the ingenue younger sister, Eileen. Bernstein wrote songs \u2013 including \u201cOne Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man\u201d and \u201cSwing\u201d \u2013 that played to Russell\u2019s strengths as a character actress not known for her vocal prowess. The original Broadway production won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical.<\/p>\n

Oh, and by the way, Jamie recalls that her father wrote the musical to cover the cost of her baby clothes and diapers!<\/p>\n