Tag: Broadway

James Naughton, Patina Miller Bring Broadway to the Small Screen

This Live From Lincoln Center back-to-back presentation begins at 9 p.m. on Friday, April 4 on West Virginia PBS.

Tune in to West Virginia PBS for James Naughton: The Songs of Randy Newman, and Patina Miller as Live From Lincoln Center continues its American Songbook series.

James Naughton, the director and two-time Tony Award-winning actor and singer, who has appeared in numerous film and television programs including CBS’s Hostages and on stage in City of Angels and Kander & Ebb’s Chicago, takes the stage to honor the great American songwriter Randy Newman. Though Naughton has sung Newman’s charming songs before in cabaret shows, he has never offered a full evening devoted to this music until now. Naughton’s “bass baritone voice is a phenomenon, both in its caressing resonance and in the ease with which he slides from traditional crooning to jazz-inflected swing” (The New York Times). Newman’s work as a Hollywood soundtrack composer of the past thirty years was preceded by years as a prolific, highly successful songwriter of such hits as “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today,” “Sail Away,” and “I Love L.A.”

At 10 p.m., a second Live From Lincoln Center premiere features singer Patina Miller.

Winner of the 2013 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Pippin and soon to be featured in the upcoming Hunger Games: Mockingjay films, Patina Miller is both a fresh new face and a performer at the very top of her game. Her first Broadway show, Sister Act, earned her nominations for both Tony and Olivier awards, and Variety called her “a nonstop dynamo discovery.” Her voice is a powerhouse of sound, equal parts dazzle and warmth, and her first televised concert will feature a wide range of music from classic R&B to Broadway’s best.

Sting Goes Broadway

  Sting is a musical icon of mine. That being stated, it pains me to recognize that his solo work is a largely uneven affair ranging from the sublime to the outright dreadful. The first couple of albums were full of fire and conviction. Listen to those albums and Sting sounds like he’s singing for his life.

Soul Cages (studio album number 3) brought gems like “All This Time” and “Why Should I Cry for You?” and others, but overall it was a mess. Something was amiss. Ten Summoner’s Tales followed and with it redemption. The old Sting, the one who write such gorgeous, heart-felt songs, was back from his slumber.

What followed was, as they say on VH1, “Then it all went horribly wrong.”

The muse seemed to have walked out the door with the next three albums. Mercury Falling fell,Brand New Day scraped the bottom and Sacred Love finally came to a complete rest. After this, Sting had a long bout with writer’s block. Coincidence or was his muse trying to tell him something?

Sting, a very educated and often articulate man, often spouts nonsense a la Nigel Tufnel. When the reviews for Soul Cages came out, he said, “This latest album has got the best reviews I’ve ever had – and the worst. There’s a polarity about them which is quite extraordinary and, I suppose, in a way, confirming.”

Perhaps others were sensing that the music being served up was “less than” and the muse finally gave up on Sting.

Now he is taking his music to Broadway.

Regarding the musical, only Sting could say something like this: “I was writing songs for other characters than me, other sensibilities than mine, a different viewpoint,” he continued. “And so all of that pent-up stuff, all of those crafts I’d developed as a songwriter, I was suddenly free to explore without much thinking, actually. It just kind of came out as a kind of Tourette’s, a kind of projectile vomiting. It just came out, very quickly.”

I just bet it’s like that. We’ll see.

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