Diablo Theatre Presents A GRAND NIGHT FOR SINGING, Now thru 12/7

As a holiday treat, Diablo Theatre Company offers up the delightful A Grand Night for Singing, a romantic, entertaining revue of music by Rodgers and Hammerstein, the duo who created songs that are standards of musical theater and American popular culture. The show will run tonight, November 29-December 7 at Walnut Creek's Lesher Center for the Arts.

"Some Enchanted Evening," "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'," "Hello, Young Lovers," "If I Loved You," and "Maria" are just a few of the songs from landmark Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals-South Pacific, Oklahoma! The King and I, Carousel, and The Sound of Music-that are featured in this Tony Award-nominated revue.

A talented cast of five will bring these exquisitely crafted works to life through innovative arrangements that take the form of a ballroom dance send-up performed to "Shall We Dance," a sultry Andrews Sisters version of "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out-a My Hair," and a jazzy "Kansas City" from Oklahoma!
A Grand Night for Singing started as a cabaret show that Tony Award-winning director and choreographer Walter Bobbie expanded into a two-hour revue. Five performers run seamlessly through more than three dozen works from the Rodgers and Hammerstein canon. The Broadway production opened in 1993, and was nominated for two Tony Awards-for Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical-and for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revue.

A Grand Night for Singing showcases many of the duo's best-known songs-"It Might as Well Be Spring," "This Nearly Was Mine," and "Soliloquy" from Carousel-songs that have been covered by popular music's greatest artists. It also features gems from State Fair, Cinderella, and Flower Drum Song, as well as from lesser known musicals such as Allegro and Pipe Dream.

With a nod to its cabaret origins, this production of A Grand Night for Singing, will be presented in the more intimate 297-seat Margaret Lesher Theatre at the Lesher Center for the Arts. Terry Barto directs and choreographs, and BranDon Adams serves as vocal and music director. Favorite Bay Area theater veterans make up the cast: Noel Anthony, Michael Scott Wells, Elise Youssef, Tielle Baker and Nicole Frydman.
There are 11 performances of A Grand Night for Singing at the Lesher Center, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. For tickets, call 925-943-SHOW (7469) or visit www.lesherartscenter.org or www.diablotheatre.org.

ABOUT DIABLO THEATRE COMPANY

One of the Bay Area's premier producers of musical theater, Diablo Theatre Company began modestly in the late 1950s with a small group of musical theater fans who wanted to produce their favorite Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. Calling themselves Diablo Light Opera Company, the founders presented shows at Walnut Creek's old Civic Arts Center, a converted walnut-shelling house. When Walnut Creek opened its state-of-the-arts performing arts venue, the Lesher Center for the Arts, in 1990, DLOC became one of its anchor tenants and began mounting large-scale musical productions in the 785-seat Hofmann Theatre. To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the company changed its name to Diablo Theatre Company to better reflect its move away from light operas to Broadway musicals. Today, Diablo Theatre Company continues to enrich and entertain East Bay residents by celebrating contemporary musical works and re-imaging the classics. It also inspires the next generation of theater artists through its acclaimed theater education programs for adults and youth, including its STARS 2000 Teen Theatre.

ABOUT RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN

Starting with their first collaboration, Oklahoma! in 1943, composer Richard Rodgers and librettist/lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II transformed American musical theater by creating the first musical play. Their highly successful partnership, which blended Rodgers' sophisticated musical style and Hammerstein's innovations in operetta, continued through the next two decades with the Broadway shows Carousel (1943), Allegro (1947), South Pacific(1949), The King and I (1951), Me and Juliet (1953), Pipe Dream (1955), Flower Drum Song (1958) and The Sound of Music (1959). They also wrote the movie musical, State Fair (1945), and the TV musical, Cinderella(1957). Collectively, their musicals have won dozens of awards including Pulitzer Prizes, Tonys, Oscars, Emmys, and Grammys. For more information, visit the official Rodgers and Hammerstein website, www.rnh.com.

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