BWW Exclusive: John Lloyd Young Counts Down His Favorite Broadway Performances!
And get your tickets now to his concert at the Space on October 3!
By: Nicole Rosky Sep. 20, 2020
Tony and Grammy Award-winner John Lloyd Young returns to The Space in Las Vegas on Saturday, October 3 with John Lloyd Young's Broadway, an intimate and unforgettable evening of Broadway favorites and classic showtunes. With Tommy Faragher on piano, the concert will be streamed live on October 3 at 6 pm ET and available OnDemand for one week following. Both options are $30. The virtual after-party will begin at 7:45 PM ET and include a talk-back, surprises and an encore performance.
In his signature passionate and thrilling style, Tony and Grammy Award-winner John Lloyd Young interprets the spine-tingling, soul-bearing showstoppers that shaped his earliest Broadway aspirations. Young sings from Jersey Boys, The Wiz, Chicago, Hair and more, along with classics by legendary Broadway writers including Rodgers, Hart, Hammerstein, and Loesser. Following the 80-minute live concert, there will be a virtual after-party moderated by founder of The Space, Mark Shunock. John and his music director, Tommy will share never-before-heard tracks from their in-progress, brand-new album followed by a discussion and a lively Q&A with questions solicited in advance from afterparty audience members.
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While we await he big night, we're getting inside John's head as he counts down ten Broadway performances that have excited, entertained, and inspired him throughout his life and career!
10. Anthony Perkins "Never Will I Marry" from Greenwillow
"I was eight when I discovered this performance. Norman Bates in a Broadway musical? Creepy lighting? Haunting music by Frank Loesser? ...NORMAN BATES?? SIGN ME UP!"
9. Elaine Stritch- "The Ladies Who Lunch" from Company
"Sondheim is so great if you like humor with great depth and bite. Elaine Stritch always fascinated me with her feral unpredictability. She was like the theatrical-equivalent of Bette Davis; always ready to explode. I saw Elaine Stritch in her final Cafe Carlyle performances. At that time, I had recently started playing the Carlyle myself. Good...COMPANY?"
8. Donna McKechnie- "The Music and the Mirror" from A Chorus Line
"I was also eleven when I saw the original long-running production of A CHORUS LINE at the Shubert Theatre. By then it had been running there my whole life up to that point. But there's something about Broadway fans; we have an obsession with original casts. So I spent my whole life dreaming of what Donna must have been like as "Cassie," imagining her performance through the cast album. Fast forward to YouTube. Thank God for this bootleg! And Donna's my friend now. How is this my life? I can die happy."
7. Ellen Greene- "Somewhere That's Green" from Little Shop of Horrors
"I was eleven when I saw this movie in the theatre. I was so excited. I knew Ellen Greene was the ORIGINAL from the famous production in NEW YORK CITY. That's a big deal for a kid in Omaha dreaming of being a New York actor. Years later, when I was starring in JERSEY BOYS, I learned it was Bob Gaudio--yeah the real-life one--who produced this movie's soundtrack! High five, Bob."
6. Robert Preston- "76 Trombones" from The Music Man
"I grew up with this movie, but my grandparents were Broadway fans who saw Robert Preston on stage in the original Broadway cast. I was always swept up in Preston's dream trajectory with this role: starring on Broadway, winning the Tony, re-creating the role for Hollywood at Warner Bros! Recognize some of those buildings they're marching in front of? At Warner Bros. they call that part of the backlot Midwest Street. In the JERSEY BOYS movie, it doubled as Belleville, NJ. The more you know..."
5. Dreamgirls
"It wasn't until a few months into our Broadway run of JERSEY BOYS that I looked around me and realized how obvious an influence Michael Bennett's DREAMGIRLS must have had on Des McAnuff's staging, lighting, pacing and storytelling. DREAMBOYS, anyone?"
4. Michael Ball- "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" from Les Miserables
"I remember when this epic musical swept everyone away at the Tony Awards in the late 80s. I used to fall asleep at night listening to the cassette tape of the Original London Cast. I dreamed of playing Marius and singing those songs. Years later I got the chance to, under the stars at the Hollywood Bowl. Some dreams come true, kids."
3. Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal- "What You Own" from Rent
"Broadway actors of a certain age and type will remember that Anthony Rapp's opening measures of this song were gold, because if you were preparing this, it meant you had a callback. RENT was my first Broadway callback. I was so excited -- the show was without a doubt my generation's HAMILTON. RENT didn't work out for me, but I found another show. Young HAMILTON aspirants! If it doesn't work out for you, keep going. There could be another show for you, too."
2. Carl Anderson- "Heaven on Their Minds" from Jesus Christ Superstar
"This kind of singing?? In a Broadway musical?? Unheard of at its time, really. This is the Broadway score I'd choose to take with me if I were stranded on a desert island. I saw Carl Anderson do this live on tour. Pathos! Yum."
1. André De Shields- "So You Wanted to Meet the Wizard" from The Wiz
"André was my first Broadway idol. I. love. this. man. THE WIZ was the hit musical the year I was born. I grew up watching the movie but I always preferred the Original Broadway Cast album. The movie didn't feature the Wizard's big song! It's one of the most electrifying in musical theatre."
John Lloyd Young is the Tony and Grammy Award-winning star from the Original Broadway Cast of Jersey Boys as well as Clint Eastwood's Warner Bros. movie adaptation. Young is the only American actor to date to have received all four major Lead Actor honors in a Broadway musical: the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Theatre World Award. Young has performed concerts at The White House, Carnegie Hall, New Year's Eve in Times Square, The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, the U.S. Embassy in Finland, Clint Eastwood's Tehama Golf Club, The Hollywood Bowl, the Cafe Carlyle as well as Feinstein's/54 Below in New York, Feinstein's at the Nikko in San Francisco and Feinstein's at Vitello's in Los Angeles. He served as a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, appointed by Barack Obama.
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