BWW Reviews: New BROADWAY BY THE YEAR Covers 1991-2015

Along with the great entertainment featuring top flight theatre and cabaret performers, Scott Siegel's Broadway By The Year concerts always provide lessons in the artistic developments in Broadway musicals.

In the concert covering 1941-1965 we heard how showtunes matured in that span, with more attention to plot and character. The 1966-1990 edition chronicled the influence of both American and British rock on Broadway. The selections for this past week's concert, covering 1991-2015, made clear the growing number of main stem hits that are containing scores made up of songs not originally written for the theatre and older theatre songs showcased into new musicals.

This doesn't always signify a lack of creativity, as the very autobiographical songs of Edward Kleban and Fela Kuti fit very well into new books that explored the lives of these complicated artists. Happily, original cast members were on hand to repeat snippets of their performances from these shows, with Randy Graff's wistful sincerity tearing hearts with Kleban's "The Next Best Thing To Love" from A Class Act and Fela!'s Sahr Ngaujah, who was nearly killed in an auto accident a month ago, entering on crutches to sing the protest anthem "Everything Scatter."

Representing other efforts to frame existing songs with show business biographies were Gay Marshall with an elegant "It Never Was You" from LoveMusik (about the romance between Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya), Scott Coulter (the evening's director) with a delicately still "Will You Still Love Me?" from the Carole King musical, Beautiful, and Denise Spann Morgan and The "Marvelous" Marvelettes, lending old-school girl group authenticity to "It's My Party," from the musical about record producer Florence Greenberg, Baby, It's You!

Nostalgic musical revues had their say with song and dance man Jeffrey Denman's stylish tapping to "Pennies From Heaven" (Swinging On a Star), Jimmy James Sutherland's rapid-fire tapping to "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" (After Midnight) and Kenita Miller's jaunty "After You've Gone" (One Mo' Time).

The quarter century saw an increase in films with original scores being adapted for the stage. Ace mimic Christina Bianco juggled impressions of Julie Andrews, Kristin Chenoweth, Barbra Streisand, Bernadette Peters, Liza Minnelli and Celine Dion in a Mary Poppins medley, Lucia Spina joined Coulter for a tender rendition of "Falling Slowly" (Once) and Kristin Dausch was very sweet with The Little Mermaid's "Part Of Your World."

One of the big hits of the 90s, Crazy For You, was a revamping of the 1930 Gershwin show, Girl Crazy, the musical that introduced Ethel Merman to Broadway. Rousing belter Klea Blackhurst paid homage to the icon by joyously performing "I Got Rhythm" the way she did, without amplification.

Thankfully, there were original scores written during this period, and some very fine ones too. Legendary musical theatre writers Betty Comden and Adolph Green were represented on Broadway with a new show for the last time in 1991 with The Will Rogers Follies (music by Cy Coleman) and replacement star Larry Gatlin opened the evening to sing their lovely plea to preserve our natural environment, "Look Around."

Other highlights included Quentin Earl Darrington's forceful "Make Them Hear You" (Ragtime) and Brian Charles Rooney's impassioned "Into The Fire" (The Scarlett Pimpernel), backed by the Broadway By The Year Chorus.

2015 was represented twice. Early on, Tony Danza reprised his comic crooning from Honeymoon In Vegas, "Out Of The Sun," and Lisa Howard repeated the performance that brought down the house at the Tony Awards two weeks earlier, her 11 o'clocker from It Shoulda Been You, "Jenny's Blues."

As always, the eclectic mix of styles was handled with aplomb by music director/pianist/arranger Ross Patterson and his Little Big Band.

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