Off-Broadway NewsYork Theatre Company’s Concert Version of Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s Celebration Presented January 27David Glenn Armstrong directs.
By
Andrew Gans
January 27, 2020
Samantha Bruce
Joseph Marzullo/WENN
The York Theatre Company, under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director James Morgan and Executive Director Evans Haile, offers a staged concert of a newly revised version of the 1969 Broadway musical Celebration, by Harvey Schmidtand Tom Jones, January 27.
David Glenn Armstrong directs the 2:30 PM and 7:30 PM performances, with music direction by Deniz Cordell.
Nick Wyman
Joseph Marzullo/WENN
The cast features Fred Applegate (The Producers) as Rich, Samantha Bruce (The Fantasticks) as Angela, Matt Dengler (The Visit) as Orphan, and Nick Wyman (The Phantom of the Opera) as Potemkin, with Joy Del Valle, Gabriella Mack, Noah Mogaka, and Rafael Rodriguez as the Revelers.
Broadway vets Applegate and Wyman first performed these same roles opposite each other 47 years ago in a New Jersey stock production of Celebration.
This new version of Celebration was first staged in 2016 by the New Line Theatre in St. Louis. The musical, set on a deserted city street in winter, spotlights a group of ragged revelers who perform a modern version of the ancient ritual battle between Winter and Summer, the Young and the Old.
Set in the aftermath of an unimaginable tragedy—a child shooting another child at school—two mothers struggle with sainthood and demonization in the glare of the national spotlight.
