Patti LuPone & More to Perform at Mayo Performing Arts Center in March

Mayo Performing Arts Center has unveiled its March lineup featuring The Four Phantoms, Spyro Gyra & Jeff Lorber, Patti LuPone. 

Check out program details below! 

The Four Phantoms in Concert

Saturday, March 2 at 8 pm
 
Morristown — Enjoy the music of your favorite Broadway shows as performed by four former stars of Phantom of the Opera.  The Four Phantoms in Concert comes to Mayo Performing Arts Center on Saturday, March 2 at 8 pm. Tickets are $39-$89.
 
The Four Phantoms in Concert brings together an extraordinary quartet of Broadway stars each of whom has played the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tony Award Winning Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, London’s West End and around the globe. Brent Barrett, Ciarán Sheehan, Franc D’Ambrosio, and John Cudia are also joined by Kaley Ann Vorhees, one of the youngest sopranos to sing the role of Christine on Broadway.
 
Under the musical supervision of two-time Grammy Award-winner David Caddick and musical direction of Ryan Shirar, the show features many of the hits from the Lloyd Webber songbook, as well as  songs from Man of La Mancha, Chicago, Les Miserables and many more.
 
Brent Barrett has entertained millions of fans around the world from the stages of Broadway, the West End, concert halls, recording studios, and television. He recently reprised his role as Billy Flynn in the Tony Award winning hit, CHICAGO-The Musical, for which he received a LA Drama Critics Award.
 
John Cudia holds the distinct honor of being the first and only actor to have performed both as the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera and Jean Valjean in Les Misérables on Broadway. John’s most recent Broadway run counted him as only the 12th performer to play the Phantom in its historic, record-breaking 30 plus years. John played Jean Valjean at the Marriott Theater in Chicago where his performance earned him the Joseph Jefferson Award for “Best Actor in a Musical.”
 
Franc D’Ambrosio is best known for his impressive portrayal of the lead role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tony Award-winning musical, The Phantom of the Opera. Affectionately known as the “Iron Man of the Mask,” Franc held the title of “The World’s Longest-Running Phantom” for more than a decade after bringing over five million theatre-goers to their feet in a six and one-half year run.
 
Ciarán Sheehan, a native of Dublin, Ireland, has performed the role of the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera to critical acclaim both on Broadway and in Toronto, Canada. Other Broadway roles include Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera, and Babet and Marius in Les Miserables.
 
Special guest Kaley Ann Voorhees is best known for her portrayal of Christine in Andrew Lloyd Webber's longest running musical, The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. She is the youngest to play the role on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre, starting her run at the age of 20.

Spyro Gyra 50th Anniversary

Special Guest: Jeff Lorber Fusion
Thursday, March 7 at 7:30 pm
 
Morristown  -- Two legendary modern jazz bands take the Mayo Performing Arts Center stage on Thursday, March 7, featuring Spyro Gyra and Jeff Lorber Fusion.  Tickets are $39-$79. 
 
Over its 50+ long existence, Spyro Gyra has performed more than 10,000 shows and released 35 albums, garnering platinum and gold records, and crossover hits such as “Morning Dance” and “Shaker Song.”  Led by saxophonist Jay Beckenstein, the band, which originated in Buffalo, New York, has found a new resurgence since emerging from the pandemic.
 
“As long as I can perform at a high-level, I would never think of retiring,” Beckenstein says. “But I can’t tell you what it would be like if I was to have to continue as a lesser version of myself. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened yet. So all I am thinking about right now is that I can’t wait to see the people again.”
 
Grammy Award-winning keyboardist-composer-producer Jeff Lorber has, over the course of 42 years and 24 albums, pioneered the post-fusion sound of contemporary jazz with his radio-friendly, groove-oriented instrumental music. From 1977’s Jeff Lorber Fusion to 2017’s Prototype, named Best Contemporary Instrumental Music album at the 60th annual Grammy Awards, to his recent collaboration with guitar great Mike Stern on Eleven, Lorber has shown a knack for creating fresh vibes and funky grooves while layering on jazzy improvisations on piano, synthesizer and his signature Fender Rhodes electric piano.
 
An acknowledged pioneer of what would later become known as “smooth jazz” and “urban jazz,” Lorber has woven together elements of funk, R&B, rock and electric jazz into an appealing hybrid that has consistently won over listeners from coast to coast and resulted in several #1 radio hits.

Patti LuPone: A Life in Notes

Friday, March 8 at 8 pm
 
Morristown  -- Three-time Tony winner Patti LuPone returns to the MPAC stage on Friday, March 8 at 8 pm.  Patti LuPone: A Life in Notes reflects the music that influenced her acclaimed career. Tickets are $49-$99. 
 
Patti LuPone describes her new concert as a “personal musical memoir,” and what a memoir she has! Patti takes to the stage with her longtime musical director Joseph Thalken to celebrate, through song, her legendary career.
 
“Patti LuPone is that very particular kind of animal, perhaps the last of the breed, a genuine Golden Age Broadway star, the kind that can turn a theater into a living room, throwing out an electric current that makes 1,000 people feel as if they are being spoken to, and sung to, individually,”  says Maureen Dowd of The New York Times
Ms. LuPone is a three-time Tony Award winner for her performances as Joanne in Marianne Elliott’s award-winning production of the Stephen Sondheim and George Furth musical Company, Madame Rose in the most recent Broadway revival of the Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents classic Gypsy and the title role in the original Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita.

In addition to Company, her recent NY stage appearances include the Scott Frankel, Michael Korie, and Douglas Wright musical War Paint (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for Best Actress in a Musical), Douglas Carter Beane’s new play Shows For Days, at Lincoln Center Theater, her debut with the New York City Ballet as Anna 1 in their new production of The Seven Deadly Sins, Joanne in the New York Philharmonic’s production of Company, David Mamet’s The Anarchist, and Lincoln Center Theater’s production of the David Yazbeck and Jeffrey Lane musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, for which she was nominated for Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. 

Her other stage credits include appearances with the Los Angeles Opera in their new production of John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles and Weill and Brecht’s Mahagonny (debut), the world premiere of Jake Heggie’s opera To Hell and Back with San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Mrs. Lovett in John Doyle’s production of Sweeney Todd (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominations; Drama League Award for Outstanding Contribution to Musical Theatre), the title role in Marc Blitzstein’s Regina, a musical version of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes at the Kennedy Center, Fosca in a concert performance of Passion, which was also broadcast on PBS’ Live From Lincoln Center, a multi-city tour of her theatrical concert Matters of the Heart, the City Center Encores! productions of Can-Can and Pal Joey, the NY Philharmonic’s productions of Candide and Sweeney Todd (NY Phil debut) and performances on Broadway in Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, David Mamet’s The Old Neighborhood, Terrence McNally's Master Class and in her own concert Patti LuPone On Broadway.

Photo credit: Douglas Friedman

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