Stephen Schwartz & Friends Concert “Defying Gravity”

Stephen Schwartz, Grammy and Academy Award winning composer and lyricist, (Wicked, Pippin, Godspell) will perform a concert with his friends - Broadway Tony winner Debbie Gravitte and Broadway & award winning cabaret singer Scott Coulter to benefit our the Summer Theatre of New Canaan.

Don’t miss this remarkable opportunitiy for one night only to experience Stephen Schwartz sing and accompany his most popular hits from Broadway and Disney movies. Benefit concert on Friday, March 5th performed in New Canaan at the New Canaan Country School Theater. Evening begins at 7:30pm with a silent auction. The concert starts at 8PM. Post show reception follows. Tickets are $60 students, $125 concert and $225 for concert and post show reception with our celebrities.

Also please consider making an online donation when you order your tickets.STONC is a 501c3 non-profit arts organiztion. Amount paid on ticket over $50 is tax deductible.

Stephen Schwartz Concert to benefit The Summer Theatre of New Canaan
Friday, March 05, 2010 at 7:30 PM
New Canaan Country School Theater
649 Frogtown Road
New Canaan, CT 06840
Phone: (203) 966-4634
Website: www.stonc.org
E-Mail: info@stonc.org

Follow this link for more information: http://stonc.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=228253

The third year of The Human Race Theatre Company’s Stephen Schwartz Musical Theatre Scholarship competition is going to be bewitched, as The Victoria Theatre Association joins in the presentation and members of the touring cast of Wicked take part in the show.

The scholarship finals were moved up to March 1 to coincide with Wicked’s visit to The Schuster Center. Daniel Torres of the Wicked cast will emcee the show, and three other cast members will perform. Stephen Schwartz will act as one of the judges, and, for the first time, one of the votes will be determined by the audience.

Seven college students who are either from the Dayton area or attend school in the region will each be singing two show tunes at the finals, one of them by Schwartz, the famed composer of such musicals as Pippen, Godspell, Children of Eden, Snapshots: A Musical Scrapbook (which premiered at The Human Race), and, of course, Wicked. There will be a reception after the show at which guests will be able to meet the finalists, Schwartz and the participating performers from Wicked.

The seven participants are Rachel Jones of Hamilton and Baldwin-Wallace, Andrew Koslow of Springboro and the University of Oklahoma, and five Wright State Musical Theatre Majors - Charity Farrell, Hilary Fingerman, Kelsey Hopkins, Charlie Mann and Alexandra Sunderhaus.

The Schwartz Scholarship finals will begin at 7pm March 1 in the Mathile Theatre in the Schuster Center. Tickets are $20 for the show, and $50 for both the show and the reception, and are available by visiting http://humanracetheatre.org/schwartz.shtml or calling (937) 228-3630 or toll-free (888) 228-3630.

Photo by Michael Cole

Now in its seventh year on Broadway, ‘Wicked’ became the first show to gross $2 million in eight shows.

Wicked became the only Broadway show in history to gross more than $2 million for a single week of performances, bringing in $2,086,135 for the week ending November 29, 2009. The smash-hit musical topped its own previous record of $1,839,950, set in December 2007, and set a new house record for the Gershwin Theatre.

“Wicked” features music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman.

For more information on “Wicked” see the official site at www.wickedthemusical.com and the Stephen Schwartz fan site “Wicked” pages at
www.musicalschwartz.com/wicked.htm

Stephen Schwartz and John Ondrasik (of Five for Fighting) have penned a couple of tunes together. Five for Fighting’s latest album is titled “Slice”: the title song was co-written by the duo.

Five For Fighting’s “SLICE” CD on Amazon.com

(from Five for Fighting’s Myspace page):

If every album provides snapshots of where an artist’s mind at heart is at the moment, Slice, the latest offering from John Ondrasik (aka Five for Fighting), is a collection of digital jpegs and faded Polaroids. The album takes stories of friends, family and even American servicemen, and sets them to music shot through with the spirit of the great songs of his youth. It’s a diary, or a blog, in which Ondrasik speaks his mind about current issues, experiences and sentiments, while setting those thoughts to piano, bass and drums.

The title track, featuring Ondrasik’s soaring falsetto, comes from a daydream that we’ve all had at some point in our lives-that moment when we long for a simpler time when life seemed better and the songs were bigger. It’s a sly play on one of those grand songs, Don McClean’s “American Pie”: “There was a time a long, long time ago/Chevies and levies played on the radio/No cell phones just 20,000 lights, swaying on a Saturday night.”

Academy Award-winning composer Steven Schwartz (who penned the songs for acclaimed musicals such as Wicked, Godspell and Pippin), helped Ondrasik bring the idea to fruition, co-writing “Slice” (as well as the song “Above the Timberline”). “We sat down at a coffee shop to talk about writing together,” says Ondrasik, ” I told him about my idea for ‘Slice,” and ‘American Pie’ actually came on the radio. It was surreal. Stephen immediately wrote the first two lines on a napkin, and we were off and running.

“I’ve been a fan of Five for Fighting since I first heard ‘Superman’,” says Schwartz, “and then was blown away by ‘100 Years.’ I got the full CDs and was really impressed by John Ondrasik’s writing-great tunes and smart and surprising lyrics. So naturally I didn’t hesitate a moment when John asked me to co-write a couple of songs with him. It was, as I expected, great collaborating with him-experiencing first-hand his musicality and gift for melody, his incisive way with words, and the passion and care he puts into each of his songs.”

“I had a fascinating moment when I was going over an aria with our brilliant leading lady, the soprano Lauren Flanigan. At one point on a big high note, I said to Lauren that I wanted a very warm sound because of the emotional content of the moment. Lauren replied instantly, “Oh, well, then you don’t want me on the high A where you have me; I can give you power on the A but for the warmest sound you probably want me on the G#.”

For the rest of the story, please subscribe to the free quarterly ezine/newsletter: follow this link and you will be sent a link to the current issue from Carol de Giere and the official fan site for Stephen Schwartz.