Top #29 TONY Award Countdown ? They’re Playing Our Song

by | May 14, 2016 | Antoinette (Tony) Awards, Blog

GOOD MORNING BROADWAY FANS! You are waking up to New York Broadway Tours Top 30 Tony Awards Countdown playing you the best of Broadway performances from the past telecasts and getting ourselves hyped for Broadway’s biggest night just 29 Days Away!!

At #29 today is a Musical about that incredible feeling about making it in this industry and when something you created gets a lot of attention… there was YouTube with people going viral. It tells the story of a wise cracking composer who meets a laid back & off beat lyricist at a disco, who end up collaborating, making their dreams come true, and end up falling in love. The show was THEY’RE PLAYING OUR SONG, loosely based on a real life true situation between the show’s real life composer the late Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager. It was also written by playwright Neil Simon. Originally, the musical is considered as a two person show with pre-recorded voices as the Greek Chorus. However, some productions have included a real live Ensemble as the Greek Chorus in it.

From the 1979 telecast, the legendary Lucie Arnaz (daughter of the late iconic Lucille Ball) in her Broadway Debut and Comedic performer Robert Klein show off their ultimate “freak out” mode as they sing the show’s title song.

THEY’RE PLAYING OUR SONG premiered at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in 1978 before heading to Broadway’s Imperial Theatre in 1979 playing for 1,093 performances. It was nominated for 4 Tony Awards (including Best Musical) loosing all of it’s categories.

Several well known replacements in the original Broadway production included Tony Roberts, Rhonda Fareer, Victor Garber (who later opened the National Touring production), Stockard Channing, and Anita Gillette.

THEY’RE PLAYING OUR SONG was last performed in NYC back in 2010 as a one night only benefit performance for The Actors Fund. It starred Seth Rudetsky and Tony winner Sutton Foster.

Doesn’t this show make you wanna disco and boogie your way to Broadway?!!

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Top #30 TONY Award Countdown – A Class Act

by | May 13, 2016 | Antoinette (Tony) Awards, Blog

GOOD MORNING BROADWAY FANS! Today marks 30 days till Broadway’s Biggest night of the year…The 70th Annual Tony Awards. In honor of that, New York Broadway Tours once again is hosting our 2nd annual Top 30 countdown of some of our favorite performances from the past telecast. In addition, we want you guys to be involved to help choose some of your favorite performances and we can add it to the lineup.

Kicking off our Tony Countdown at #30 is a Musical about a composer / lyricist the Theatre World actually did not know much about…. Edward Kleban (who shared a Tony and Pulitzer Prize for Drama with the late?Marvin Hamlisch for creating the lyrics for a little known musical called A Chorus Line). He passed away in 1987 from throat cancer and his story was told in an autobiographical memorial tribute called A CLASS ACT. It was written by Linda Klein (Kleban’s longtime companion) and Lonny Price (who also directed and started as Kleban).

From the 2001 telecast, Tony nominees Lonny Price and Randy Graff, future Tony winner Sara Ramierez, and cast members perform a medley of Edward’s powerful songs including FOLLOW YOUR STAR, BETTER, and SELF PORTRAIT.

A CLASS ACT first premiered Off Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2000 before transferring over to Broadway’s Ambassador Theatre in 2001 where it played a total of 135 performances. It was nominated for 5 Tony Awards (including Best Musical) loosing all of it’s categories.

A beautiful tribute to a talented and inspirational man that believed in his dreams. RIP Edward Kleban.

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