New York City Center, which is currently closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, is posting daily highlights from former Encores! and gala productions.
This week's offerings, curated by Encores! Artistic Director Jack Viertel, celebrate the songs of Harold Arlen and kicked off with Tony winners Brandon Victor Dixon and Nikki M. James performing the title song from the 2003 City Center Encores! production of House of Flowers and Helen Goldsby performing "I Had Myself a True Love" from the 1998 City Center Encores! production of St. Louis Woman.
Below, watch Vanessa Williams sing from the 2018 City Center Encores! production of Hey, Look Me Over!, a collection of excerpts from shows that had, at that time, not yet been seen on the City Center stage: All American, George M!, Greenwillow, Jamaica, Mack & Mabel, Milk and Honey, Sail Away, and Wildcat. Here, stage and screen star Williams performs Jamaica's "Push de Button."
Vanessa Williams, who鈥檇 created such a storm in St. Louis Woman, returned to City Center to take on the role that Lena Horne had done in the original and delivered Harburg鈥檚 clever ode to modernity, 鈥淧ush de Button.鈥�
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Says Viertel, "Back in 1990, in his historic survey, American Popular Song, Alec Wilder went way out on a limb and confessed that he preferred Harold Arlen鈥檚 music to George Gershwin鈥檚. The comparison, whatever one thinks of it, wasn鈥檛 inapt. Both men were deeply influenced by African-American song traditions, jazz, and experimentalism. Arlen鈥檚 theatre songs have as much or more in common with Duke Ellington as they do with Richard Rodgers or Cole Porter, and while Gershwin has remained eternally the more popular, here at Encores! we鈥檝e done everything possible to make sure Arlen鈥檚 endlessly seductive and inventive music is heard.
"He did not have a sterling career on Broadway. Standards like 'Over the Rainbow,' 'Blues in the Night,' and 'The Man That Got Away' were written for Hollywood. But he did write a great number of great songs for musicals that were, by and large, not as great as their scores. This week, we feature Arlen on Broadway."
The famed Manhattan venue launched the series March 22, Stephen Sondheim's 90th birthday, with a week of videos from Sondheim musicals. to watch all of the previously released performances.
