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STRITCH SLAPPED: A Musical Evening With Elaine Stritch Comes to the Crown Theater

By: Jan. 17, 2020
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STRITCH SLAPPED: A Musical Evening With Elaine Stritch Comes to the Crown Theater  Image

Stritch Slapped, A Musical Evening with Elaine Stritch is a tribute to one of the brightest stars that ever shined on Broadway. This eighty-five minute cabaret-style performance celebrates the life and legacy of the incomparable Elaine Stritch marking the anniversary of what would have been her 95th birthday.

Stritch Slapped: A Musical Evening with Elaine Stritch once again finds "Stritchy" (as her good friend, playwright, composer and author Noel Coward dubbed her) donning her casual white silk blouse and black rehearsal tights alone on a barren stage with a single stool. Mac as Stritch will take audiences on a journey through her remarkable life and career. Regaling the audience with tales of her time during Broadways golden age working with luminaries like Ethel Merman, and Hal Prince and the deep friendships she established with icons like Judy Garland and Noel Coward.

The entire show is told through story and song including highlights from Bus Stop, Sail Away and of course, the penultimate career break, the 1970 Broadway smash, Company. The audience should expect a lot of sass, sarcasm and of course Sondheim!

The entire shows is spoken and sung live by award-winning and critically-acclaimed Tribute Artist Peter Mac brings his spot-on impersonation of the bawdy, precocious scene-stealer whose career spanned over six decades. Mac has built a career of recreating live and accurate portrayals of divas from the golden ages of Broadway, Television and Hollywood. He won the highest honor the Motion Picture Council gives to a performing Artist not in the film industry - the coveted Golden Halo Award - for his loving vibrant portrayal of Judy Garland. The award was presented to him by Academy Award winners Margaret O'Brien (who remains a friend and mentor to Peter today) and the late great Mickey Rooney.

Mac's performance as Elaine Stritch will share the up's and downs of this legendary Actress - who led a life that could very well be the definition of the classic Sondheim song, "I'm Still Here." She stole so many moments on stage that she could have been convicted of grand larceny. She was the epitome of class and sass, as an octogenarian she maintained her show-girl legs, ash blonde helmet coiffure and that trademark, scotch soaked voice. Millennials will know her best as Alec Baldwin's ornery mother, "Colleen Donaghy" on NBC's hit primetime series Thirty Rock but her incomparable and vast body of work on Broadway, including her Tony award-winning one woman autobiographical show, Elaine Stritch: At Liberty surpasses that small screen recurring role...Emmy Award winning though it might have been.

Why Peter Mac chose to do a Tribute to Elaine Stritch as a follow-up to his sold out shows in NYC.

"She was so real, so she was so rough, she was just so friggin funny and above all, she was goddamn brutally honest to a fault and yet, like all of the diva's that I so admire; she had that wonderful vulnerability underneath it all. There's so much that we can learn from Elaine's experiences and adventures in the theater. As well as her valiant battle with alcoholism and diabetes."

"Younger generations need to know who she was beyond television and older generations need to be reminded of who she was. Her work on "Thirty Rock" was wonderful but she was so much more than that. The whole part of being a tribute artist is to keep someone like Elaine alive on stage and introduce audiences to her so that they will go off and watch the real thing and discover her work. It's about entertaining but educating at the same time. You can do both!"

Like Judy Garland, Peter Mac has found that many who impersonate Stritch go for cheap jokes, cheap laughs and a one dimensional approach.

"Elaine Stritch was beyond three dimensional! This woman had more layers to her than an onion. As with portraying Judy, or any of the forty plus ladies that I pay homage to, I want to approach her larger than life persona from a realistic loving place. She deserves to be presented in a human honest and honorable way. The way she lived her life."

Stritch Slapped: A Musical Evening with Elaine Stritch plays on Sunday February 2nd 2020 at 4 PM. And on Monday February 3rd at 8PM. In the Crown Theater At The Producers Club located at 358 West 44th street in Manhattan. Tickets can be purchased at StritchSlapped.com.



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