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Charles Isherwood of The New York Times observed, “[Composer] David Bryan evokes the powerhouse funk of James Brown, the hot guitar riffs of Chuck Berry, the smooth harmonies of the Temptations, the silken, bouncy pop of the great girl groups of the period.” The New York Post raved “Of such thrills, Broadway is made.” The Associated Press called Memphis “The very essence of what a Broadway musical should be.”

Memphis takes place in the smoky halls and underground clubs of the segregated 50’s, where a young white DJ named Huey Calhoun (Kimball) falls in love with everything he shouldn’t: rock and roll and an electrifying black singer Felicia Farrell (Glover). Memphis is an original story about the cultural revolution that erupted when his vision met her voice, and the music changed forever.

Filled with high-octane dancing, songs that perfectly capture the era, and an absorbing tale of fame and forbidden love, the show offers soaring emotion and roof-raising rock ‘n’ roll.

The show’s Tony®-winning original score features music by Bon Jovi’s founding member and keyboardist David Bryan and lyrics by Bryan and Joe DiPietro (I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change), who also pens the musical’s book. . The show is based on a concept by the late George W. George (producer of the Tony nominated Bedroom Farce and the film My Dinner With Andre), with direction by Tony nominee Christopher Ashley (Xanadu) and choreography by Sergio Trujillo, (Jersey Boys, Next to Normal).

The critically acclaimed production of Memphis won a total of four 2010 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Score (David Bryan and Joe DiPietro), Best Book (Joe DiPietro), and Best Orchestrations (David Bryan and Daryl Waters). Memphis is currently in its 3rd smash year on Broadway, delighting audiences nightly at the Shubert Theatre (225 West 44th Street).

Memphis recently launched a U.S. national tour in Memphis, TN, which opened to critical acclaim in October 2011 at the historic Orpheum Theatre.

Memphis will be released on Blu-ray™, DVD and digital download on January 24th by Shout! Factory, in association with Broadway Worldwide.

Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers. For nearly 50 years, WNET has been producing and broadcasting national and local arts programming to the New York community.

Great Performances is funded by The National Endowment for the Arts, the Irene Diamond Fund, Vivian Milstein, The Starr Foundation, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, Joseph A. Wilson, The LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, public television viewers, and PBS.

For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.

The high definition production was captured by Broadway Worldwide live-in-performance at the Shubert Theatre. Broadway Worldwide is led by executive producer Bruce Brandwen, with five-time Emmy® winning director Don Roy King and Grammy® winning sound producer Matt Kaplowitz.

Filmed last October 2010 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Hitman Returns, the follow-up concert to the hugely popular 2008 Hitman: David Foster & Friends, is an all-star celebration featuring even more chart-topping stars and music from the 15-time Grammy Award-winner’s extensive career catalog.

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Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media partners.

The Mandalay Bay Events Center concert followed showman Foster’s 10-city “Foster + Friends” tour which sold out across the country. “We had such a phenomenal time last go round, I knew that I wanted to come back with a stronger, bigger and even more theatrical show that would be totally unforgettable.  I think we succeeded in assembling some of the greatest voices out there for one night,” stated Foster.  “I was thrilled to be hosting and accompanying my friends on this very special night,” he concluded.

Foster’s high profile friends on this occasion include All-4-One, Martina McBride, Charice, Natalie Cole, Earth, Wind & Fire, America’s Got Talent sensation Jackie Evancho, Lara Fabian, Ne-Yo, Michael Bolton, pedal steel guitar virtuoso Robert Randolph, Chaka Khan, Kenny Loggins, Seal, Ruben Studdard, and Donna Summer, performing songs either written, produced or connected to Foster over the course of his prolific musical career.

The evening offers  a succession of  showstopping solos, from both veteran performers and newcomers, the latter category represented in spectacular fashion by 10-year-old phenomenon Jackie Evancho’s renditions of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Pie Jesu” and Puccini’s “O Mio Babbino Caro,” and “Glee” star Charice’s soulful “All By Myself.”

But the concert is also thrilling for its striking duets: Bolton and Seal’s bluesy mash-up of “When a Man Loves a Woman” and “It’s a Man World”; Natalie Cole and Ruben Studdard’s nostalgic “When I Fall in Love”; Lara Fabian and Bolton’s fervent “The Prayer”; and Donna Summer and Seal’s powerhouse medley of “Unbreak My Heart,” “Crazy,” and “On the Radio.”

Foster — who has been nominated for an unprecedented 45 Grammy awards, won two Emmys and was an Oscar nominee — has discovered and nurtured the careers of megastars such as Josh Groban and Michael Bublé.  He has well as created chart-topping hits for legends  Andrea Bocelli, Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Chicago, Michael Jackson, Earth, Wind and Fire & Chaka Khan.

Song Rundown (as of press time)

David Foster “Winter Games”
Kenny Loggins “Heart To Heart”
Chaka Khan “Through the Fire”
All-4-One “I Swear”
Natalie Cole / Ruben Studdard “When I Fall In Love”
Jackie Evancho “Pie Jesu”
Jackie Evancho “O Mio Babbino Caro”
Martina McBride “We’ve Got Tonight”
Michael Bolton / Seal Medley “When A Man Loves A Woman / It’s A Man’s World”
Chaka Khan “I’m Every Woman”
Earth Wind & Fire Medley “In The Stone / September / After The Love Has Gone”
Lara Fabian “Caruso”
Ne-Yo “Miss Independent”
Charice “All By Myself”
Ne-Yo, Charice, Robert Randolph “Earth Song”
Lara Fabian / Michael Bolton “The Prayer”
Donna Summer / Seal Medley  “Unbreak My Heart / Crazy / On The Radio”
Donna Summer “Last Dance”

The concert was produced by THIRTEEN for WNET and WBR (Warner Bros. Records) for PBS broadcast on Great Performances, and will also be released this March as a concert CD/DVD on 143/Reprise Records.

The telecast was directed for television by David Horn, and produced by Mitch Owgang. Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn and David Foster are executive producers.

Great Performances is funded by The Starr Foundation, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, Joseph A. Wilson, public television viewers and PBS.

Taped in July of 2010 at New York’s Neil Simon Theater, Harry Connick, Jr. in Concert on Broadway features Connick’s big band and a 12-piece string section, with the star on both a Steinway grand and upright honky-tonk piano. Variety raved, “Connick, in concert, packs such dynamite that those ‘Jersey Boys’ across the street seem positively sedate.”

The program will air Wednesday, March 2 at 9:30 p.m. ET on Great Performances, which is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media partners. . (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the program on Thursday, March 3 at 8 p.m., ET, check local listings to see when the program airs in your area.)

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Connick is no stranger to Great Performances. In 1990, the series produced and presented Connick’s first primetime solo special Harry Connick Jr. and His Orchestra: Swinging Out With Harry, followed by 2004’s Only You which garnered an Emmy.

Backed by a cadre of top-flight musicians, including trombonist Lucien Barbarin, Connick performs an infectious mix of evergreen standards, original compositions, and New Orleans street music, all arranged and orchestrated by Connick.
Stephen Holden in The New York Times enthused about the “joyful noise that had the audience stomping and cheering. It was the next best thing to Mardi Gras…”
Song List

Act 1
We Are in Love
The Way You Look Tonight
Bésame Mucho
The Other Hours (from “Thou Shalt Not”)
Nowhere with Love
How Insensitive
Come by Me
Medley: My Time of Day / I’ve Never Been in Love Before
All the Way

Act 2
Bayou Maharajah
Hear Me in the Harmony
Light the Way (from “Thou Shalt Not”)
St. James Infirmary Blues
Take Her to the Mardi Gras (from “Thou Shalt Not”)
Bourbon Street Parade
Mardi Gras in New Orleans

Harry Connick Jr.’s career has been studded with awards and recognition, including several multi-platinum and gold albums, an Emmy Award, and a starring role in a Tony-winning Broadway musical.

His albums, which have sold more than 25 million, giving him vast success on the jazz charts and great crossover success on the pop charts, include the soundtrack to “When Harry Met Sally…” “We Are in Love,” “Come by Me,” “Harry for the Holidays,” “Only You,” and “Your Songs.”

As an actor, his movie and TV roles include acclaimed performances in “Memphis Belle” (his debut), “Little Man Tate,” “Copycat,” “Independence Day,” “My Dog Skip” (voiceover), “South Pacific,” “P.S. I Love You,” and “New in Town.” He also had a recurring role on “Will & Grace.”

In 2001, he made his debut as composer/arranger and lyricist for the Broadway musical, “Thou Shalt Not” (Tony nomination) and in 2006 starred in the acclaimed revival of “The Pajama Game” for which he received Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Drama League nominations.

A production of Cinemusica and Fogolabs for Conn-X Productions, the telecast was produced and directed for television by Pierre & Francois Lamoureux, with Ann Marie Wilkins, James L. Nederlander, Beth Williams, Thomas B. McGrath, and John Gore as executive producers. Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.
Great Performances iby the National Endowment for the Arts, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, the Irene Diamond Fund, Vivian Milstein, Paul W. Zuccaire Foundation, the Starr Foundation, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, Joseph A. Wilson, public television viewers.

The co-production between WNET.ORG and Illuminations Television, in association with the BBC, stars Sir Patrick Stewart in his triumphant, Tony-nominated performance as the ambitious general, and Tony-nominated Kate Fleetwood as his coldly scheming wife.

The production, though retaining the Goold’s exciting concept of relocating the bloody action to a nameless 20th-century militaristic society, has been rethought in vivid filmic terms. The movie, marking Goold’s cinematic debut, will be presented on PBS as part of the Great Performances series Wednesday, October 6, at 9 p.m. (check local listings).

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Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers. Originating at England’s innovative Chichester Festival Theatre, the play – the Bard’s shortest tragedy — is taken out of its Scottish context to offer an allegory of war and the quest for power in the modern world. Writing for the Hollywood Reporter after its London opening, Ray Bennett enthused, “Seldom can Shakespeare’s murky Scottish tragedy ‘Macbeth’ have been staged with so much clarity and emotional punch as in Rupert Goold’s exhilarating production.”

When the production opened stateside at BAM, Ben Brantley of The New York Times praised Stewart’s “fearsome insight and theatrical fire.”

Elysa Gardner in USA Today observed Stewart’s “witty, nuanced work, which reveals Macbeth as an intelligent, rational person driven to madness by outside forces and his own violent transgressions. There is something of Lear — and Hamlet, too — in this portrait of a thoughtful, corruptible man.”

This is not your grandfather’s “Macbeth.” Shot in High-Definition at Welbeck Abbey in the U.K., Goold maintains the atmosphere and tone of the stage version, heightening the Shakespearean classic with an edgy style reminiscent of Illuminations’ recent film adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet, which was also broadcast on PBS in April 2010 by THIRTEEN’s Great Performances. Among the actors recreating their roles for the film are Michael Feast (Macduff); Martin Turner (Banquo); Scott Handy (Malcolm); Paul Shelley (Duncan); Suzanne Burden (Lady Macduff); and Christopher Patrick Nolan (The Porter).

In support of the presentation, WNET.ORG is offering a Teachers’ Guide for educators to utilize the PBS broadcast in classrooms around the country. Hosted on www.pbs.org/gperf, the activity-based analysis of the play is illustrated by various lesson plans and activities. After the October 6 PBS broadcast premiere, the complete film will be available for viewing online at pbs.org/gperf and video.pbs.org.

Macbeth was produced by John Wyver and Sebastian Grant, with Mark Bell as executive producer for the BBC; for Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is series producer, and David Horn is executive producer.

Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, Vivian Milstein, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers and PBS.

GREAT PERFORMANCES mourns the passing of Doris Eaton Travis (1904 – 2010)—the last surviving Ziegfeld Girl—who first lit up the 1918 edition of The Ziegfeld Follies with her All American Girl star power.  Doris’ enduring song and dance charms were memorably featured in Episode One of the Emmy Award-winning Broadway: The American Musical (2004), in which she recreated one of her routines, Irving Berlin’s “Mandy,” on the set of The Lion King in the beautifully restored New Amsterdam Theater—the very stage on which she had performed in the Follies eight decades earlier.