Gaslight presents Rodgers and Hammerstein revue A Grand Night for Singing Feb. 22-Mar. 17

Release Date: 2/6/2007. Expired: 3/17/2007

Take a musical journey through some of the greatest songs in Broadway history when the Gaslight Dinner Theatre presents the Rodgers and Hammerstein revue A Grand Night for Singing Feb. 22-March 17.

Classics from some of the most popular Broadway musicals of all time get fresh new takes in this Tony-nominated show created by Walter Bobbie.

Tickets for A Grand Night for Singing are on sale now. Evening performances are $30 and include a buffet dinner beginning at 6:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Senior Matinees are $20 and include a buffet lunch beginning at noon on Thursdays and Fridays.

More than 30 years after Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II debuted their final collaboration, The Sound of Music, this new revue opened the 1994 Broadway season with flair and distinction, garnering wildly enthusiastic notices and Tony nominations for Best Musical and Best Book and a Drama Desk nomination for Best Revue.

Picked to shape an evening of Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, Bobbie listened to the music outside of the context of its individual shows and envisioned each song independently as it might be performed today. Classics from Carousel, State Fair, Oklahoma, Cinderella, The King and I, South Pacific, The Sound of Music, Allegro, Flower Drum Song and other shows are presented in new arrangements and styles.

“Reading the words without characters, scenes or situations, ideas just began to click,” Bobbie said. “I was reading Many a New Day (from Oklahoma) and I thought, ‘Wow, listen to that. It sounds like a women’s support group.’

“I think because Hammerstein wrote from the inside out, I never tried to force an idea on a number. When an idea sprang naturally from within the lyric, then it seemed legitimate to me.”

Imagine Shall We Dance (from The King and I) as a comic pas de deux for mismatched lovers. Or a lovelorn young man asking, “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” from The Sound of Music.

South Pacific’s I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out-a My Hair becomes a sultry Andrews Sisters boogie while Honey Bun is set in swing style.

“We wanted the evening to be romantic, an emotional journey through the various stages of love,” said Bobbie. “We would begin with the dawning of romance – young infatuation and the awakenings of real love. The Surrey with the Fringe on Top (Oklahoma) became a great pick-up number. We Kiss in the Shadow (The King and I) is about a clandestine romance.”

Without forcing any songs into the revue, Bobbie traces the arc of romance from courtship to cold feet through marriage, commitment and into family, children, mature love and loss.

More than 35 Rodgers and Hammerstein songs are presented by a five-member cast in the intimate surroundings of the Gaslight Dinner Theatre.

“Our musical revues have been tremendously popular,” said Pacer Harp, managing director of the Gaslight Dinner Theatre. “We’ve done revues from Sinatra to disco to country and now we are paying tribute to two of the greatest musical writers in Broadway history. You’ll hear songs that are familiar, but hear them presented in a whole new way.”

The cast includes Gaslight Dinner Theatre veterans Anna Hammonds, Nathan W. Brown, Sara Schoch, Bryan J. Wlas and Julie Meirick. Brown also is musical director for the show and Wlas is the choreographer.

Schoch, Wlas and Meirick were most recently seen in the Gaslight’s sold-out run of Christmas My Way: A Sinatra Holiday Bash, a holiday musical revue of Frank Sinatra songs.  Brown and Hammonds shared the dinner theatre stage with lead roles in last year’s wildly popular production of Anything Goes.

For more information on the Gaslight Dinner Theatre’s production of A Grand Night for Singing, call (615) 740-5600 or visit www.rcenter.org. To purchase tickets beginning Jan. 5, call (615) 740-5570.

The Gaslight Dinner Theatre is located inside The Renaissance Center, a fine arts education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit the Theatre page for more about community and professional theatre.

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