Kiki & Herb are Alive on Broadway Beginning Aug. 11
By: BWW News Desk Jul. 26, 2006
Popular downtown stars Justin Bond and Kenny Mellman--aka Kiki and Herb--will star on Broadway for a limited engagement at the Helen Hayes Theatre.
"Kiki is a brash, boozy septuagenarian chanteuse. She's seen it all and done it all, just don't expect her to remember it all. Kiki has never much cared what other people think, but she's always willing to say what she thinks. On stage with her stalwart accompanist and only living friend Herb, Kiki lets rip with political rants, searing social commentary and confessions about their own highs and lows. As the story goes, a young Kiki & Herb met in the 1930s at the Erie Children's Institutional, where the two would begin an artistic collaboration and close personal relationship that would last a lifetime. A very long lifetime. Together they've self-medicated their way through numerous regimes, fads and fascists, presidencies, pregnancies and personal challenges that would send most other people into rehab or retirement, but not Kiki & Herb. They don't quit! Largely ignored by their own generation, they have been championed by the international hipster set in the twilight of their show business career," state press notes.
"Kiki expounds upon all this and more as Herb tickles the ivories in Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway, their latest installment of musical madness. In a performance worthy of the Great White Way, Kiki & Herb display their musical prowess with reinventions of songs by great artists old and new such as: The Cure, Bob Merrill, the Wu-Tang Clan, Bright Eyes, Dan Fogelberg, The Mountain Goats and many more....Between songs, Kiki regales their audience with self-indulgent pronouncements and grand delusions, taking on a wide range of subjects from motherhood to gay marriage, the president to the pope."
Past Kiki & Herb shows include Kiki & Herb Will Die For You at Carnegie Hall, Kiki & Herb: The Resurrection Tour, Kiki & Herb: Coup de Theatre, Jesus Wept and There's a Stranger in the Manger!. They released the film Kiki & Herb: Reloaded in 2005, while Kiki & Herb Will Die For You is available on a 2-disc CD.Set Design for Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway is by Tony Award-winner Scott Pask, with lighting design by Jeff Croiter, costume design by Marc Happel and sound design by Brett Jarvis. The show will be presented on Broadway by David J. Foster, Jared Geller, Ruth Hendel, Jonathan Reinis Inc., Billy Zavelson and Jamie Cesa, in association with Gary Allen, Anne Strickland Squadron and Melvin Honowitz.
There will be an additional performance on Monday, August 14 at 8:00 PM. There will be no performance on Wednesday, August 16 . Tickets are $87.50 and can be purchased through Telecharge.com at (212) 239-6200 or at www.telecharge.com. For each performance, a lottery for $25.00 front row seats will be held 2 hours before curtain. A limited number of $200.00 premium seats are available for each performance. Premium patrons receive a Kiki & Herb VIP souvenir package. For more info, visit www.kikiandherb.com.
Photos by Joe Oppedisano--Justin Bond as Kiki and Kenny Mellman as Herb
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