"Follies in Concert" Musical Benefit, Oct. 26 and 28

Musical theatre stars with performance credits ranging from Carnegie Hall to the White House will converge in a benefit concert on behalf of Notre Dame de Namur University’s summer Music Theatre Conservatory, Oct. 26 and 28. 

 

Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies in Concert” is the perfect musical to showcase such talent as cabaret star Wesla Whitfield, Metropolitan Opera soprano Erie Mills, award-winning vocalist Meg Mackay, music director William Liberatore, stage director Marc Jacobs, dancer/choreographer Dottie Lester White, and actors Lee Strawn and Debra Lambert.

 

"There is an exciting congruence of talent and lifetime accomplishment in this cast,” said Lambert, also NDNU’s Chair of the University’s Department of Music and Vocal Arts. “’Follies’ is a landmark musical, and presenting these songs with this stunning collection of established artists, all of whom are contributing their time and talent on behalf of opportunities for young performers, is an amazing gift. We are having a blast!"

 

Jacobs, the director of “Follies,” agrees with Lambert. “What better show to bring together so many of the Bay Area’s most magnetic performers…mixing with a new generation of music theatre performers who are attending Notre Dame de Namur University or who have graduated from the Music Theatre Conservatory,” he said. “As these institutions are about developing the performers of tomorrow, “Follies” is the ideal show to bring these worlds together.”

 

The story of “Follies” was inspired by a Life magazine photo of movie diva Gloria Swanson standing be-gowned and be-jeweled in the wrecking ball ruins of the old Roxy Theater in New York. It is appropriate to do “Follies” so close to Halloween, as it is something of a ghost story. Two couples, friends in their youth, confront the ghosts of their pasts at a reunion for former showgirls and other performers who shared a stage long ago. For all of them, these ghosts represent a prime that has passed, roads not taken, regrets, betrayals, and a longing for what is gone. Fittingly, Stephen Sondheim’s score is considered both a summing up of musical styles and influences from the birth of American musicals to the end of what is considered the Golden Age of musicals in the early 60s, and a coda to that period.

 

The show includes some of Sondheim’s most memorable songs, performed by the older/wiser “Beautiful Girls” of the Follies; “Losing My Mind” (sung by Wesla Whitfield), “I’m Still Here” (Meg Mackay), “One More Kiss” (Erie Mills), “Broadway Baby” (Shanon Orrock), and “Could I Leave You?” (Debra Lambert). Dancers Dottie Lester White and Gia Solari tap a brilliant duet in “Mirror Mirror” as showgirls, past and present.

 

“Follies,” with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Goldman, was originally produced on Broadway by Harold Prince in 1971. It was first performed as “Follies in Concert” with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center in 1985, with stars Lee Remick, Barbara Cook, Elaine Stritch, Mandy Patinkin, George Hearn, and Erie Mills (coming full circle in this performance as “Heidi”) as “Young Heidi.”

 

Showtimes are Oct. 26 at 8 p.m., and Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. in the Ralston Hall Mansion Ballroom on the NDNU campus located at 1500 Ralston Avenue in Belmont. Seating is limited. Tickets for the benefit concert cost $42. All proceeds will be donated to scholarships for summer 2008 Music Theatre Conservatory students. For more information or tickets call NDNU’s Department of Music and Vocal Arts at (650) 508-3429, or e-mail concerts@ndnu.edu.

 

“Follies in Concert” is presented by NDNU’s Department of Music and Vocal Arts and the Ralston Performers Series. The Follies concert version is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI).