Joan Curto Comes to Madden Theatre, 2/26
By: Kelsey Denette Jan. 19, 2012
Performing at such prestigious venues as New York’s Lincoln Center and Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre has earned After Dark Award-winning vocalist and Naperville native Joan Curto the title of "cabaret icon" by NBC TV Chicago. Celebrating theTony and Grammy Award-winning composer Jerry Herman, Curto’s No Tune Like A Show Tune: The Words & Music of Jerry Herman, which has played to packed houses across the country including New York City’s Metropolitan Room, and Maxim’s and Davenport’s in Chicago, will now bring the hit show to her hometown at NorthCentral College’s Madden Theatre, 161 E. Chicago Avenue, Sunday, February 26th at 6pm. . Tickets are $27 and are available by calling 630-637-SHOW (7469) or online at
www.tickets.noctrl.edu/ .Earning Curto some of the best reviews of her already incredible career, the Chicago Tribune’s Howard Reich raved about the show and Curto’s performance, calling Joan " a seasoned interpreter who makes the most out of every note." Herman’s material, which has been sung by such musical icons as Barbra Streisand, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra, provides the perfect showcase for Curto’s classic, sultry styling and emotional versatility. She will be performing Herman favorites Before The Parade Passes By from Hello Dolly!, I Am What I Am from the 1983 and 2010 Tony Award winning show La Cage Aux Folles, Time Heals Everything from Mack & Mabel and lesser known gems from Grand Tour and A Night In The Ukraine. Another Chicago favorite, Beckie Menzie provides musical direction.
With the landmark musicals Hello Dolly!, Mame and La Cage Aux Folles, Herman is the only composer-lyricist to have three musicals that ran more than 1,500 consecutive on Broadway. The timelessness and longevity of Herman’s music and words is illustrated with the 2010 Tony Award for La Cage as Best Musical Revival. His best known song, the catchy Hello Dolly!, became a world-wide hit in 1964 when recorded by Louis Armstrong, even knocking The Beatles off the #1 spot on theBillboard Hot 100 chart. The Broadway musical, starring Carol Channing opened the same year, ran for 2,844 performances, going onto became Broadway's longest-running musical and winning an unprecedented 10 Tony Awards. Mame followed in 1966, starring Angela Lansbury repeating Dolly’s success with a hit catchy title tune, as well as the holiday standard We Need a Little Christmas. Another song from the show, If He Walked Into My Life became a Grammy Award winning hit for Eydie Gorme. What has followed amounts to a life-affirming body of work rivaled by few: Dear World, the under-appreciated Mack & Mabel, The Grand Tour, Mrs. Santa Claus, Jerry's Girls, and of course La Cage aux Folles.
Joan Curto who has won the After Dark Award for Outstanding Cabaret Vocalist, has performed at many of the country’s most prestigious music venues including New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Room, The Gardenia in Los Angeles, Milwaukee’s Sharon Lynne Wilson Center, and The Colony Hotel in Palm Beach. One of Chicago’s top female interpreters of the great American songbook, she has performed sold out concerts at the Auditorium Theatre, Harris Theater, Park West, The Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower, Davenport’s Maxim's, the ASCAP and Chicago Humanities Festival concert series and the Mabel Mercer Foundation’s Chicago Cabaret Convention.
Joan’s 2004 CD release, May I Suggest?, garnered national radio airplay and critical acclaim and is available atwww.cdbaby.com, digital downloads at iTunes and by visiting her web site at www.joancurto.com.
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