Barry Manilow is bringing his latest show to Broadway!
On Thursday, Ghostlight Records exclusively shared thefirst singlefrom 80-year-old Manilow’s upcoming Broadway productionHarmonywith PEOPLE before it releases everywhere Friday.
courtesy of DKC/O&M
“In the 1920s and ‘30s, The Comedian Harmonists sold millions of records, made dozens of films and sold-out the biggest theaters around the world,” reads an official synopsis for the production.
“Their heavenly harmonies and musical comedy antics catapulted these six talented young men from singing in the subway tunnels of Berlin to international superstardom,” the synopsis adds. “What happened next is the story ofHarmony.”
The production’s arrival on Broadway is decades in the making; Manilow initiallypremiered the musicalin California all the way back in 1997. Harmonywas originally intended to open on Broadway in 2004, but the run was canceled when its funding fell apart, according toThe New York Times.
The show has received a number of Off-Broadway awards nominations, including a 2002 Drama Desk Award nomination for outstanding musical and the Drama Desk Award for outstanding book of a musical, according to a release.Harmonyran Off-Broadway again in 2022 at the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, where it received the Off-Broadway Alliance’s best new musical award and eight Outer Critics Circle Award nominations, a release reads.
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The production is centered around the real-life story of the Comedian Harmonists, a group of German singers who gained fame in the 1920s and ’30s. The group ran into trouble as Germany’s Nazi regime took power in the ’30s because it featured some performers who were Jewish, according to theTimes.
“They represent everything I love — they’re a combination of The Manhattan Transfer and the Marx Brothers, with complicated harmonies — and funny as hell,” Manilow told the outlet aboutHarmonyin April. “When we dug into it, it just killed me: Why don’t we know about them?”
Harmonybegins preview performances Wednesday, Oct. 18, with opening night at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre scheduled for Monday, Nov. 13. Tickets can be purchasedhere.
source: people.com
