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End of the Rainbow – 2012

End of the Rainbow – 2012

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Synopsis

“A Star Is Born Again! Tracie Bennett’s extraordinary performance as Judy Garland delivers the right mixture of emotional intensity and vocal bravura!” – The Times of London Olivier Award-winner Tracie Bennett gives what critics have raved is “the performance of a lifetime” as Judy Garland in Peter Quilter’s highly acclaimed new play, End of the Rainbow. This emotional powerhouse of a show was the most buzzed about theater piece last year in London where it played to capacity night after night. The critically celebrated production now comes to the US for a limited engagement this winter in Minneapolis before arriving on Broadway in April. It’s December 1968 and Judy Garland is poised to make a triumphant comeback… again. In a London hotel room with her young new fiancé and trusted pianist at her side, Garland prepares to undertake a series of concerts at London’s famed Talk of the Town in an attempt to reclaim her crown as the greatest talent of her generation. This savagely funny drama shows Garland facing the challenge with her signature cocktail of talent, tenacity and razor-sharp wit, revealing the most brilliant star in her most demanding role: her life. Along with the accompaniment of a six-piece onstage band, Tracie Bennett brings alive some of Garland’s most memorable and beloved songs, including “The Man That Got Away,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “The Trolley Song,” and, of course, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

Credits

Vocal: Tracie Bennett Drums: Mike Smith Double Bass: Andy Pask Electric/Acoustic Guitars: Adam Goldsmith Piano/Keyboards: Chris Egan Trumpet: Mike Lovatt, Pat White Trombone: Andy Wood Woodwinds: Howard McGill, Jamie Talbot Violin: Robert Atchison, Julian Trafford, Laura Melhuish, Jayne Harris Conductor: Gareth Valentine Arrangements by Chris Egan Songs composed by Harold Arlen, Ted Koehler, Howard Dietz, Arthur Schwartz, Walter Jurmann, Gus Kahn, Bronislaw Kaper, E.Y. Harburg, Mark Fisher, Joe Goodwin, Larry Shay, Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin, James Hanley, Ray Goetz, Edgar Leslie, George Meyer, James V. Monaco, Joseph McCarthy, Ralph Blane, Hugh Martin, Charles Chaplin, Geoffrey Parsons, John Turner, Dorothy Fields, Jimmy McHugh, Betty Comden. Adolph Green, Jule Styne

About

The subtitle says it all – Tracie Bennett Sings Judy. An affectionate tribute to the great movie star, the nusical show by Peter Quilter had its world premiere at the Sydney Opera House in Australia in 2005, and played at the Edinburgh Festival the following year. It was staged again, with Tracie Bennett in the lead role, at Northampton’s Royal & Derngate (February 5-20, 2010), and at Trafalgar Studios, in London’s West End, from November 16, 2010 to May 21, 2011. Following an American premiere at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, where it played from January 28 to March 11, 2012, the show headed for Broadway and the Belasco Theatre, where it opened in April and played 160 performances. On the album, Tracie Bennett – portraying Garland on the eve of another comeback in 1968 – sings with uncanny veracity some of her model’s signature songs – “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart,” “The Man That Got Away,” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” among others.