New York City Center Annual Gala Presentation Archives

New York City Center Annual Gala Presentation

Ragtime

November 9, 2024

"Ragtime," thought of as an unwieldy musical with too many characters and too many themes, hit Broadway in 1998. Based on the 1975 E.L. Doctorow novel of the same name, the many storylines were artfully tamed by the team of Terrence McNally (book), Stephen Flaherty (music) and Lynn Ahrens (lyrics). New York City Center has chosen "Ragtime" as its 2004 Annual Gala presentation in a brilliantly streamlined production directed with an eye to its still-important message by Lear DeBessonet with a large and exceptional cast and an excellent orchestra under the baton of James Moore playing William David Brohn’s original rich orchestrations. [more]

Parade

November 7, 2022

World events have inadvertently raised the significance of the New York City Center’s Annual Gala presentation of the brilliant new staging of the Jason Robert Brown/Alfred Uhry musical Parade which debuted over two decades ago. Anti-Semitism and xenophobia have risen to epidemic levels. This moving dramatization of actual events drives home the inevitable results of such unreasonable hatred. "Parade" is the gripping story of Leo Frank (Ben Platt), a Brooklyn Jew, who moved to Atlanta, Georgia for a better job. He married a Southern Jew, Lucille (Micaela Diamond), whose southern version of Judaism confuses him. Frank was the manager of a pencil factory and was accused of raping and murdering a 14-year-old white employee, Mary Phegan (Erin Rose Doyle), on Confederate Day, 1915. This almost operatic musical drama impeccably depicts how Phegan’s death led to a flowering of the anti-Semitism (twisted to the prosecution's benefit, horribly during Frank’s trial) and the KKK. [more]

Evita

November 18, 2019

Solea Pfeiffer in a scene from New York City Center’s revival of “Evita” (Photo credit: Joan [more]