M O N D A Y, M A R C H 5 , 2 0 1 8
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A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENTS
Welcome to The Town Hall. Tonight promises to be a special night and we thank you for joining us. While we are recognized as one of New York’s premier concert venues for music, dance and other performing arts, Town Hall was built just after World War I to be New York’s public forum, a place for free discussion. A gathering place where everyone could have a voice to tell their stories and give their opinions. How exciting to have a master of Broadway, Andrew Lloyd Webber, in an exclusive evening hosted by the incomparable Glenn Close introducing and discussing his new memoir, UNMASKED. Speaking of great nights, last week we opened our 18th Year of Broadway by the Year®, our signature series featuring the best songs and best performers of Broadway. Our next BBTY is on March 26, and will feature musicals from 1947 & 1966, including Finian’s Rainbow, Brigadoon, Cabaret, Sweet Charity, Mame, I Do, I Do, and more! The third installment, with shows from 1956 and and 1975, will take place on May 21. The fourth installment on June 18 highlights The Phantom of the Opera, Carrie, Dear Evan Hansen, Anastasia, Come From Away, and Natasha, Pierre, Pierreand the Great Comet of 1812. For more information and tickets for Broadway by the Year, please visit our box office or our website, thetownhall. org/broadway-by-the-year/. Our education team has been busy bringing arts education to thousands of New York City students who are lacking arts programs. This year, our teaching artists introduce tap, ballroom, jazz dance, creative movement, visual arts, playwriting, filmmaking, and much more to these very deserving students. For information on how you can become part of our Town Hall family, and assist us in the work we do for our community, please visit our membership table in the lobby. From everyone at Town Hall - Thank you for joining us tonight.
Tom Wirtshafter Marvin Leffler President, Town Hall President Emeritus, Town Hall
M O N D A Y, M A R C H 5 , 2 0 1 8
T he T own H all P resents I N C E L E B R AT I O N O F T H E R E L E A S E O F H I S A U T O B I O G R A P H Y, U N M A S K E D PUBLISHED BY HARPERCOLLINS
A R are and I ntimate E v ening with L egendary composer
ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER in C on v ersation W ith S pecial G uest H ost and A ward - W inning A ctress
GLENN CLOSE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
TH E TOW N H A L L LARRY ZUCKER, Executive Director M.A. PAPPER, Artistic Director BILL DEHLING, Technical Director Carl Acampora, Production Manager CINDY BYRAM, Publicity LEIA-LEE DORAN, Designer @TOWNHALLNYC #TOWNHALLPRESENTS
Up Close with the Master Storyteller as He Recounts his Successes and Setbacks, His Private Demons and the Passions that Sustain Him
Joining Andrew Lloyd Webber as host for this special evening, is actress Glenn Close. A six-time Academy Award nominee, Close won a TONY award for her portrayal of Norma Desmond in Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard, and won a London Evening Standard award for the London Coliseum production of the show in Spring 2016. She reprised the role this year at the Palace Theatre in New York.
This once-in-a-lifetime event celebrates the publication of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long-awaited autobiography, UNMASKED by HarperCollins, coinciding with the legendary composer’s 70th birthday. Written entirely in his own words, the internationally-acclaimed composer recounts his fascinating life and remarkable career in UNMASKED, pulling back the curtain on his groundbreaking musicals including Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar (making its network television debut on Easter Sunday, April 1 on NBC and featuring John Legend, Sarah Bareilles and Alice Cooper), Evita, Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Sunset Boulevard and School of Rock. With his signature humor and selfdeprecating tone, Lloyd Webber shares the details of his early personal and professional years, including his early artistic influences. In UNMASKED, Lloyd Webber takes stock of his achievements, the twists of fate and circumstance which brought him both success and disappointment, and opens up about his personal demons and the passions that sustain him.
This evening, Glenn Close sits down with her close friend and colleague Andrew Lloyd Webber for an in-depth discussion of his book, his life and career. UNMASKED is ultimately a chronicle of artistic creation. Lloyd Webber looks back at his early influences -- Rodgers and Hammerstein, the pop and rock music of the 1960s, Puccini’s Tosca and the poetry of T.S. Eliot, among others - and takes us behind the scenes in the development of some of his most famous works. He details his collaborations with luminaries such as Tim Rice, Robert Stigwood, Harold Prince, Cameron Mackintosh, and Trevor Nunn, revealing fascinating details about each show and the creative, logistical and political battles involved in presenting them. Reflecting a life that included many passions (from architecture to Turkish Van swimming cats), full of witty and revealing anecdotes, and featuring cameo appearances by numerous celebrities - Elaine Paige, Sarah Brightman, David Frost, Julie Covington, Judi Dench, Richard Branson, A.R. Rahman, Mandy Patinkin, Richard Rodgers, Norman Jewison, Milos Forman, Placido Domingo, Barbra Streisand, Michael Crawford, Gillian Lynne, Betty Buckley, and more - UNMASKED at last reveals the true face of the man beneath the musical legend. Full of colorful characters, rich storytelling and illustrated with sixteen pages of color photos, UNMASKED provides unique insight into the life of the man who has entertained millions of audiences around the world with his music.
Lloyd Webber’s shows have been seen in more than 80 countries around the world and his cast recordings have generated more than 40 million album sales. His music has been recorded and performed by such music icons as Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Beyoncé and Tom Jones. Along that journey, Andrew has amassed a great many awards, including seven Tonys, three Grammys, seven Oliviers, one Golden Globe and an Oscar. Andrew has produced many of his own shows including School of Rock (the first British musical to have world premiered on Broadway), Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.
ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER When Sunset Boulevard joined School Of Rock, Cats and The Phantom Of The Opera on Broadway in 2017, Andrew Lloyd Webber became the only person to equal the record set in 1953 by Rodgers and Hammerstein with four Broadway shows running concurrently. Other musicals he has composed include Aspects Of Love, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Starlight Express and Love Never Dies. He is the most successful composer of musicals in history and professional productions of his shows have sold more than 330 million tickets worldwide, more than 125 million of them in the U.S. In Cats and The Phantom of the Opera he is responsible for two of Broadway’s four highestgrossing shows and Phantom alone has been seen by more than 140 million people worldwide.
Andrew has also produced and championed the work of other writers and composers. Notably he presented the groundbreaking Bombay Dreams which introduced the two-time Oscarwinning Bollywood composer A.R. Rahman to the Western stage. Other productions include the Olivier Awardwinning Daisy Pulls It Off and La Bete, and the record-breaking Palladium productions of The Sound Of Music and The Wizard of Oz. He owns seven West End Theatres including the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, the Palladium and most recently acquired The Other Palace, which he has established as a unique London home for new musicals in development and fledgling writing talent. He is passionate about the importance of music in education and the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation has become one of Britain’s leading charities supporting the arts and music. In 2016 the Foundation funded a major new national initiative which endowed the American Theatre Wing with a $1.3 million, three-year grant to support theatre education opportunities for underserved young people and public schools across the U.S. He was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen in 1992 and created an honorary member of the House of Lords in 1997.
first American company of Sunset Boulevard, directed by Trevor Nunn. She continued her collaboration with Nunn, in his Royal National Theatre revival of A Streetcar Named Desire. Close returned to Broadway in the 2014 revival production of Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance.
GLENN CLOSE A six-time Academy Award nominee, Glenn Close made her feature film debut in George Roy Hill’s The World According to Garp, earning her awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review as well as her first Academy Award nomination. She was subsequently Oscar-nominated for The Big Chill, The Natural, Fatal Attraction and Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons (for which she was also a BAFTA Award nominee). Close stars in the title role of the film adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s bestselling novel, The Wife, with Jonathan Pryce and Christian Slater for Swedish director Bjorn Runge, opening later this year. Close received her sixth Academy Award nomination in 2012, along with Golden Globe and SAG nominations, for Albert Nobbs, having co-written the screenplay with Man Booker Prize-winning author, John Banville. Close was also a producer on the film and composed the lyrics for the Golden Globe and World Soundtracknominated song, “Lay Your Head Down.” Glenn Close made her theatre, and Broadway, debut in Harold Prince’s revival of Love for Love. Her theater credits include The Crucifer of Blood, The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs (Obie Award), Barnum (Tony nomination) and Tony Awards for her performances in The Real Thing and Death and the Maiden, both directed by Mike Nichols, and for the her performance in the
Close reprised her Tony Award-winning role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Sunset Boulevard in a new production at the London Coliseum in the Spring of 2016. For that performance she won a London Evening Standard Award and was nominated for an Olivier Award. The full production, starring Close, opened on Broadway last year, to rave reviews. In 2012, Close headlined the criticallyacclaimed, legal thriller, Damages, for five seasons. For her riveting portrayal of high-stakes litigator ‘Patty Hewes’, Close won two consecutive Emmys as “Best Actress in a Drama Series” and two subsequent Emmy nominations, along with a Golden Globe Award and three SAG Award nominations. Close’s twelve Golden Globe nominations include a Best Actress win for Andrei Konchalovsky’s adaptation of The Lion in Winter (which also earned her a SAG Award). Among the television projects that have brought her twelve Emmy nominations, is an Emmy Award for her performance as Margarethe Cammermeyer in Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (for which she also received a Peabody Award as executive producer). In 2009, Close co-founded the charity Bring Change to Mind, whose mission is to confront the stigma and misunderstanding around mental illness by “starting the conversation.” The idea for the organization came about following Close’s first-hand observation of battles with mental illness within her family. For more information, please visit Bringchange2mind.org. Close is co-chair of the Conservation Council for Panthera (panthera.org) and sponsors dogs for Puppiesbehindbars.org.
A MOMENT FROM OUR HISTORY
The Town Hall was built in 1921 by the League for Political Education, a suffragist group who believed in the power of education, and that informed citizens were responsible citizens. Originally intended as a speaker’s hall, The Town Hall offered courses and lectures to the public. Notables who spoke at Town Hall included Pearl Buck, Theodore Roosevelt, Langston Hughes, Woodrow Wilson, Henry James, Anne O’Hare McCormick, Thomas Mann, Booker T. Washington, William Butler Yeats, Amy Lowell, Margaret Bourke White, William Jennings Bryan, Ellen Terry, Maude Adams, Jane Addams, Rabindranath Tagore, Winston Churchill, John Galsworthy and Maurice Maeterlinck. The founding tenets of Town Hall-equality and inclusiveness--helped create dozens of cultural and musical landmarks. There were no racial or gender or religious barriers. People of all persuasions were welcomed to the Town Hall and on its stage from the first day it opened. Ninety-seven years of concerts, rallies, readings, debates and discussions have reflected the true diversity and spirit of New York City, because Town Hall opened its doors to everyone.
Coretta Scott King’s Freedom Concert debuted at Town Hall in November 1964. Coretta Scott King saw the power of music and words as a catalyst of change and progress, and modeled her Freedom Concerts after Paul Robeson’s performances. Robeson (who performed over three decades at Town Hall) gave political commentary before and in between songs; Mrs. King likewise alternated song and narration to tell the story of the struggle, and reached audiences beyond those who were inclined to attend civil rights rallies. Songs included hymns and freedom songs, Honor! Honor! (Hall Johnson), My Feet Are Tired (Frances Thomas), Witness (Johnson), and No Crystal Stair, arranged by Coretta Scott King’s longtime musical director and teacher Frances Thomas.
Learn More: thetownhall.org —A—
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By becoming a Sustaining Member, you can help Town Hall continue our rich tradition of bringing the widest range of voices and performers from all over the world to New York City audiences. For more information on how to join, contact: Helen Morris Director of Administration, Memberships, and Subscriptions (212) 997-1003 x 10 |Â hmorris@thetownhall.org.
MAJOR GIFTS, CORPORATE, FOUNDATION & GOVERNMENT SUPPORT This program is supported, in part, by public funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with The City Council. We would like to thank the following foundations, corporations, and government institutions for their support: Acción Cultural Española
The Hurst Foundation
The Reed Foundation
The Achelis and Bodman Foundation
Israel Consulate
Pamela and Richard Rubinstein Foundation
The Actors Fund Affiliated Advisors Bank of America Bruce Weber and Nan Bush Foundation Cohn Foundation Consolidated Edison Company of New York
Jewish Communal Fund JP Morgan Chase Jujamcyn Theaters Edythe Kenner Foundation Lewis QVC Trust Local One S&P Global Mex-Am Cultural Foundation
Council Member Daniel Garodnick
Morgan Stanley
Daryl and Steven Roth Foundation
Nederlander Organization
Robert Evanson
Nelson Foundation
Ford Foundation
Nesenoff & Miltenberg, LLP
Dr. Charlotte K. Frank
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council
Garber Atlas Fries & Associates Anne and Gordon Getty Foundation John Gore/Key Brand Entertainment William T. Grant Foundation The Hearst Foundations, Inc.
Pricewaterhouse Cooper The Rudin Foundation The Shubert Foundation The Shubert Organization, Inc. Theatre Refreshments Ticketmaster Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund Joyce and George Wein Foundation, Inc. Wenner Foundation Zegar Family Foundation
New York State Council on the Arts Henry Nias Foundation Office of the President, Borough of Manhattan, Gale A. Brewer The Pinkerton Foundation
Town Hall has played an integral part in the electrifying cultural fabric of New York City for more than 90 years. A group of Suffragists’ fight for the 19th Amendment led them to build a meeting space to educate people on the important issues of the day. During its construction, the 19th Amendment was passed, and on January 12, 1921 The Town Hall opened its doors and took on a double meaning: as a symbol of the victory sought by its founders, and as a spark for a new, more optimistic climate. In 1921, German composer Richard Strauss performed a series of concerts that cemented the Hall’s reputation as an ideal venue for musical performances. Since, Town Hall has been home to countless musical milestones: The US debuts of Strauss, and Isaac Stern; Marian Anderson’s first New York recital; in 1945, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker introduced bebop to the world; Bob Dylan’s first major concert in ‘63; and much much more. Learn more. Visit thetownhall.org/tours
THE TOWN HALL FOUNDATION The Town Hall’s mission is to provide affordable world-class entertainment by new and established artists to a diverse audience; to inspire the youth of our community to appreciate and participate in the arts at The Town Hall and in schools through our Educational Outreach Program; and to preserve and enhance The Town Hall as a historic landmark venue for the enjoyment and cultural enrichment of generations to come.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES President Tom M. Wirtshafter
President Emeritus Marvin Leffler
Vice President Alfred H. Horowitz Vice President Bruce S. Leffler
Executive Vice President Susan Zohn
Treasurer Andrew T. Miltenberg
Trustees Phyllis Putter Barasch Robert E. Evanson Anne Frank-Shapiro Alfred H. Horowitz Stephen C. Jacobs Henry Johansson Ted Lambert Bruce S. Leffler Marvin Leffler Andrew T. Miltenberg Rita Robbins Madhu Southworth Nevin Steinberg Tom Wirtshafter Susan Zohn
Secretary Phyllis Putter Barasch
LIFE TRUSTEES Leona Chanin Eugene J.T. Flanagan Claire G. Miller Robert F. Wright
THE TOWN HALL STAFF Executive Director Lawrence C. Zucker Artistic Director M.A. Papper Director of Administration, Subscriptions & Membership Helen Morris Director of Development Jacqueline Maddox Director of Education and Community Outreach Emma Klauber Publicist Cindy Byram Publicist, Broadway by the Year® Sam Morris Digital Media Manager Alex Koveos
Advisory Council Kathleen Rosenberg, Chair Nancy Berman Shauna Denkensohn Sandy Horowitz Fern Hurst Elizabeth Iannizzi Claire Miller Zita Rosenthal Rhoda Rothkopf Arts in Education Advisory Council Dr. Charlotte K. Frank, Chair Michael Fram Dr. Sharon Dunn Gary Hecht Ernest Logan Dr. Lisa Mars Dr. Eloise Messineo Dr. Pola Rosen Leona Shapiro Manuel Urena George Young Program Manager Sara Minisquero Administrative Assistant Britni Montalbano Chief Engineer Steve Franqui
WARNING
The photographing or sound recording of any performance or the possession of any device for such photographing or sound recording inside the theatre without the written permission of the management is prohibited by law. Violators may be punished by ejection and violations may render the offender liable for monetary damages.
FIRE NOTICE
The exit indicated by a red light and sign nearest to the seat you occupy is the shortest route to the street. In the event of fire or other emergency please do not run, WALK TO THAT EXIT. Thoughtless persons annoy patrons and endanger the safety of others by lighting matches or smoking in prohibited areas during the performances and intermissions. This violates a city ordinance and is punishable by law. -FIRE COMMISSIONER
DIRECTORY OF THEATRE SERVICES ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES: 212.997.1003
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Cell phones should be silenced prior to the performance as a courtesy to the performers and audience. Lobby Refreshment by Theatre Refreshment Company of NY
Box Office Manager Angel Rodriguez House Manager Richard Looney Technical Director Bill Dehling Art & Design Leia-lee Doran
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