The Peabody Opera Workshop
Eileen Cornett, musical director
presents
Richard Rodgers: a Tribute
Nothing But George
This is the Rill Speaking
Cohen-Davidson Family Theatre
Sunday, April 25, 2004, at 2:00 PM (Rodgers and George) — Open House
Monday, April 26, 2004, at 7:30 PM (Rodgers and This is the Rill)
Tuesday, April 27, 2004, at 7:30 PM (George and This is the Rill)
Admission free
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The Peabody Opera Workshop presents AMERICANA, an event featuring three composers from the American musical stage: George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, and Lee Hoiby, whose operatic setting of Lanford Wilson virtually distills what it is to come of age in America. Two of these three composers will be celebrated at each performance, according to the schedule above. Admission is free, but space is strictly limited, so come early and be prepared to enjoy yourself!
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Our tribute to Richard Rodgers presents songs and favorite numbers spanning the whole of his forty-year career. It starts with his collaboration with Lorenz Hart, with whom he wrote such musicals as Babes in Arms and Pal Joey, and songs such as “My Funny Valentine” and “Johnny One Note”. The tribute continues with Rodgers’ partnership with Oscar Hammerstein II, in such musicals as Oklahoma, Carousel, The King and I, and The Sound of Music.
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Born to Russian immigrant parents on September 26, 1898, George Gershwin quickly rose to achieve wealth and renown as one of the country’s most gifted composers of popular songs, musicals, piano works, and orchestral compositions. The revue Nothing but George, devised by Eileen Cornett with Todd Pearthree, and directed by Christine Glazier, includes many of Gershwin’s best-known songs, such as “I Got Rhythm”, “Funny Face”, “Someone to Watch Over Me”, “Embraceable You”, “Lady be Good”, and a dozen others both upbeat and romantic — plus selections from his opera Porgy and Bess. This is a unique opportunity to catch a Peabody performance of a show that is normally seen only on tour.
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This is the Rill Speaking by Lee Hoiby is an opera in one act based on the 1992 play by Lanford Wilson. It is a composite of coming-of-age, slice-of-life vignettes about small town rural life in the nineteen-fifties. For city folk who might not be familiar with rills, a rill is a small stream or brook, and the play doesn’t so much follow its characters’ lives in a traditional linear narrative, but rather visits and revisits different moments in different lives. We see women discussing home decoration, schoolboys gossiping about their classmates, teenagers trying to figure out how to flirt with each other, schoolboys trying to impress one another, neighbors sharing lemonade and gossip, mothers and fathers trying to bring up responsible children…. The overall effect is familiar and distant at the same time, funny and sad, and always poignantly touching. Musical and stage direction by Eileen Cornett.