Revue of Broadway Hits Comes to Midstate
By Joe Kovac Jr., The Macon Telegraph, Ga.
May 2–To hear Monticello native and bona fide Broadway performer Rob Evan tell it, “Neil Berg’s 100 Years of Broadway” will be a revue-style treat for audiences at the Grand.
Evan, who played football at Georgia and who has gone on to star in “Jekyll & Hyde” and “Les Miserables” in New York, said the show affords audiences in smaller towns an opportunity to see marquee talent doing Broadway numbers.
“When I do ‘Phantom of the Opera,’ I’m performing it as the phantom and not as Rob Evan, a Broadway singer,” he said.
“The reaction we get around the country is phenomenal. People love it. … It’s the variety. You get two hours of show-stopping songs. You get song after song after song of what we call 11 o’clock numbers.”
The songs follow one another as Berg, the show creator who plays piano as an accompanying musician, talks to the crowd as the revue unfolds, providing historical insights.
“Fun little inside information,” Evan said, “about why a song ended up in a certain show.”
Evan, a father of three with 16 years of Broadway experience, still has ties to the midstate. His mother lives in Jasper County and his father lives in Americus.
Next month, Evan and another Monticello product, Trisha Yearwood, will team up as part of a benefit concert at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C.
“We’ve always said we wanted to perform together and this will give us that chance,” Evan said.
As for the touring Berg show, of which he is only a part-time performer, Evan said its cast gives regional audiences the chance to see “current leading players” from Broadway.
The show consists of five actors reeling off memorable show tunes, from Irving Berlin to Cole Porter to Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein and all the way to songs from current hits like “Jersey Boys.”
“It’s great because the five different singers all have distinct voices,” Evan said.
Actor Steve Blanchard, who Evan said has played the beast in “Beauty and the Beast” on Broadway “more than anyone,” packs the voice of “a leading-man baritone.”
Evan calls actor Danny Zolli “a rock-tenor type” who “stops the show with ‘Sherry’ from Jersey Boys — the Frankie Valli song. The audience goes nuts. He kills it.”
Andrea Rivette brings “a beautiful mezzo-soprano” to the cast, Evan said, and Carter Calvert “does Patsy Cline’s ‘Crazy’ from ‘Always Patsy Cline,’ and, man, let me tell you. Close your eyes and you will not believe it. This girl sings just like Patsy Cline.”
Evan said he and his fellow performers wouldn’t be part of the touring show if they didn’t like it.
“We’re having a great time and the audiences notice,” he said.
Opens Thursday
What: “Neil Berg’s 100 Years of Broadway”
Where: Grand Opera House, 651 Mulberry St.
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday-May 9
$42-$46
Info: 301-5470
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