Rodgers & Hammerstein’s
A GRAND NIGHT FOR SINGING Music by
Lyrics by
Richard Rodgers
Oscar Hammerstein II
Musical Arrangements by
Orchestration by
Fred Wells
Michael Gibson & Jonathan Tunick
Conceived by
Walter Bobbie 8, 10, 12, 13 Aug 7.30pm; 10 Aug 3pm Edinburgh Academy Junior School The performance lasts approx. 1hr 30mins with no interval. Sung in English with supertitles. A Grand Night for Singing is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd., www.concordtheatricals.co.uk A Grand Night for Singing was originally produced by Roundabout Theatre Company, New York City, in 1993.
Please ensure all mobile phones and electronic devices are turned off or put on silent.
A GRAND NIGHT FOR SINGING Edinburgh Festival Ensemble Wayne Marshall Music Director Kim Criswell Staging Danielle de Niese Lynne Kim Criswell Victoria Anna-Jane Casey Alyson Damian Humbley Jason Richard Morrison Martin
A GRAND NIGHT FOR SINGING ACT I
‘Carousel Waltz’ from Carousel ‘So Far’ from Allegro ‘It’s a Grand Night for Singing’ from State Fair ‘The Surrey with the Fringe on Top’ from Oklahoma! ‘Stepsisters’ Lament’ from Cinderella ‘We Kiss in a Shadow’ from The King and I ‘Hello, Young Lovers’ from The King and I ‘A Wonderful Guy’ from South Pacific ‘I Cain’t Say No’ from Oklahoma! ‘Maria’ from The Sound of Music ‘Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful?’ from Cinderella ‘Honey Bun’ from South Pacific ‘The Gentleman is a Dope’ from Allegro ‘Don’t Marry Me’ from Flower Drum Song ‘I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair’ from South Pacific ‘If I Loved You’ from Carousel ‘Shall We Dance?’ from The King and I ‘That’s the Way It Happens’ from Me and Juliet ‘All At Once You Love Her’ from Pipe Dream ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ from South Pacific
ACT II
‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’’ from Oklahoma! ‘Wish Them Well’ from Allegro ‘The Man I Used to Be’ from Pipe Dream ‘It Might as Well Be Spring’ from State Fair ‘When the Children Are Asleep’ from Carousel ‘I Know It Can Happen Again’ from Allegro ‘My Little Girl’ from Carousel ‘It’s Me’ from Me and Juliet ‘Love, Look Away’ from Flower Drum Song ‘When You’re Driving Through the Moonlight’ from Cinderella ‘A Lovely Night’ from Cinderella ‘Something Wonderful’ from The King and I ‘This Nearly Was Mine’ from South Pacific ‘Impossible’ from Cinderella ‘I Have Dreamed’ from The King and I
PROGRAMME NOTES It was more than three decades after Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s final collaboration — The Sound of Music, which had opened on Broadway in 1959 — that director and choreographer Walter Bobbie came up with the idea of a revue musical based around songs from the duo’s iconic catalogue of works. He’d never directed a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical himself, but acknowledged this probably made it easier for him to imagine fresh settings, and new contexts, for some of the best-loved songs ever written. Bobbie worked with musical director and arranger Fred Wells over several months on the project, going back to Hammerstein’s original lyrics to conceive new characters and settings and to imagine how those ideas might link together into a broader narrative. The result is a story about love — from the excitement of infatuation (‘Hello, Young Lovers’, ‘We Kiss in the Shadow’) to the pain of rejection (‘All At Once You Love Her’), from courtship and marriage to raising a family (‘When the Children Are Asleep’).
A Grand Night for Singing opened on 17 November 1993 at New York’s Roundabout Theatre, in a production directed by Bobbie (who also wrote the book linking the songs) and choreographed by Pamela Sousa, and gained nominations in the 1994 Tony Awards for best musical and best book. From Rodgers and Hammerstein’s very first collaboration — Oklahoma! in 1943 — to their final masterpiece, The Sound of Music, A Grand Night for Singing explores both the much-loved and the littleknown, contrasting songs from musicals performed right across the world (The King and I, South Pacific, Carousel) with less frequently heard numbers from works including Cinderella, Me and Juliet, State Fair and Pipe Dream. David Kettle David Kettle is a music and arts writer based in Edinburgh, who contributes regularly to the Scotsman and the Daily Telegraph. He has also written for publications including BBC Music Magazine, The Times, The Strad and Classical Music, and for organisations including the BBC Proms, Glyndebourne and Scottish Opera. The videotaping or making of electronic or other audio and/ or visual recordings or streams of this production is strictly prohibited, a violation of United Kingdom Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and an actionable offence.
WAYNE MARSHALL British conductor, organist and pianist Wayne Marshall is world-renowned for his musicianship and versatility on the podium and at the keyboard. He served as Chief Conductor of the WDR Funkhaus Orchestra Cologne from 2014 to 2020 and is a celebrated interpreter of Gershwin, Bernstein and other 20th-century composers. Recent conducting highlights include his critically acclaimed debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker featuring Martin Grubinger; a widely praised new production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at the Theater an der Wien; performances with the Tonkünstler Orchestra and the Czech, Rotterdam, Oslo, Shanghai and Strasbourg Philharmonic orchestras; a Frank Zappa project with the SWR Symphony Orchestra; a tour of Bernstein’s Wonderful Town with Het Gelders Orkest and ReisZuid-Nederland; a concert version of Porgy and Bess with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra; and a UK tour with the Chineke! Orchestra and BBC Singers. Marshall was awarded with an OBE in the 2021 New Year Honours. In 2004, he received an honorary doctorate from Bournemouth University,
and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Music in 2010. In 2016, he was awarded the prestigious Golden Jubilee Award, presented by the Barbados Government for his services to music. Marshall is proud to be an Ambassador of the London Music Fund.
KIM CRISWELL Kim Criswell has been singing and acting professionally for more than 40 years. A musical theatre specialist, she has sung in such venues as Milan’s La Scala (Milan), Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, New York’s Carnegie (Weill) Recital Hall, the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon, Paris’s Châtelet, Sydney Opera House, Vienna Volksoper and the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, as well as appearing in London at the Barbican and Royal Albert, Wigmore and Cadogan halls, along with multiple other venues across the UK and Ireland. Criswell has been honoured to sing with many of the world’s greatest symphony orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. She also has long-term musical partnerships with musicians including conductor/ music historian John McGlinn, conductor John Wilson and conductor/pianist Wayne Marshall. Criswell played Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun in London’s West End in 1992, earning an Olivier award nomination for best actress in a musical. In 1989, she won the Helen Hayes Award for
Side by Side by Sondheim at the Olney Theatre in Maryland. More recently, she was seen in the US starring in Call Me Madam at the Goodspeed Opera House and as the Old Lady in Candide at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival. Original Broadway cast credits include Nine, The First, Baby, Stardust and the Sting-starred 3Penny Opera revival. She also played Grizabella in the Los Angeles premiere of Cats and Lalume in multiple productions of Kismet. She has recorded more than 40 albums, including four solo albums, and film audiences may remember her as Mrs Castellari in 2011’s Hysteria.
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