June 8, 2008

Daniel Reichard to Appear in ‘My Fair Lady’ in St. Louis!

June 8th, 2008

Playbill.com reports that a host of Broadway actors–including Jersey Boys star Daniel Reichard–will be part of the 2008 summer season at the St. Louis Muny, the nation’s oldest and largest outdoor theatre.

Daniel will portray Freddy Eynsford-Hill in the classic Lerner and Loewe musical My Fair Lady, running July 7-13. His co-stars will include Catherine Brunell as Eliza Doolittle, Joneal Joplin as Colonel Pickering, and Robert Westenberg as Henry Higgins.

For more information call (314) 361-1900, ext. 550 or visit www.muny.org.

9 Comments »

  1. Fantastic! I wish I lived in St. Louis. Congratulations to Daniel.

    Comment by L — June 9, 2008 @ 6:28 am

  2. If anyone can sing “On The Street Where You Live” it’s Daniel! Congratulations Mr. Reichard!! :)

    Comment by Jody Cardillo — June 9, 2008 @ 8:18 am

  3. I agree Jody!! Congratulations Daniel.

    Comment by LindaL — June 9, 2008 @ 10:13 pm

  4. That’s one performance…(and especially that song, Jody) that I would like to see! That voice and that smile! Can you imagine Eliza dumping Freddy for Professor Higgins with Daniel playing that role? They may have to re-write the ending, LOL!

    Comment by LuluThompson — June 9, 2008 @ 10:31 pm

  5. Stubbleyou will love this connection.

    George Bernard Shaw wrote the play “Pygmalion”, on which “My Fair Lady” was based.

    He also came up with the saying “youth is wasted on the young”, alluded to in the “Frankie Valli and the Four Tops” review of “Jersey Boys Rocks West End”!

    Comment by Ted Hammond — June 13, 2008 @ 11:38 am

  6. According to the reviews I’ve read Daniel stole the show as Freddy Eynsford which is a relatively small part and the character only appears in the second half of Act II.

    I only thought of this recently as for my son’s high school play they did “My Fair Lady” – there is an original 4 Seasons connection to the music of “My Fair Lady” – On the Hullabaloo appearance that is in “Jersey Beat” and recently posted on the Blog the 4 Seasons perform a hits medley but they also came back at the end of the show where all the stars appear to perform other hits of the day and album cuts and on this occasion Broadway show tunes. The 4 Seasons sang Bobby Freeman’s “Do You Wanna Dance” from the “Dawn” album and soloed on “With a Little Bit of Luck” from “My Fair Lady” which closed the show and where everybody else later all joined in where they all marched around in a circle and Frankie’s voice could be heard over everyone. Trini Lopez was the host and also appearing were “Herman” (aka Peter Noone) and Freddy of Freddy & the Dreamers and Vicki Carr.

    Comment by David Cace — July 14, 2008 @ 8:30 am

  7. A brilliant marketing strategy-appealing to the older generation, David, that was watching TV also.

    The Four Seasons did this with not only “With A Little Bit Of Luck”, but the original standard “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You”, and such others as Gene Austin covers of “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” and “The Lonesome Road” and other covers on their early LPs, and of course, the best ever version “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” later on.

    In all fairness, the Beatles also used this strategy with “Till There Was You” from “The Music Man” and the original standard “Yesterday”. I’m sure there were others, but we didn’t pay as much attention to the Bugs of Britain, David.

    I do remember that persons in the older generation appreciated these covers and new standards.

    Of course, “Jersey Boys” now extends that appeal to younger generations.

    Comment by Ted Hammond — July 14, 2008 @ 12:16 pm

  8. You are right Ted. This strategy also applied to their live concerts. Remember the scene in Jersey Boys where Bob first meets Frankie and while Frankie is singing “I’m in the Mood For Love/Moody’s Mood for Love” Bob says to Joey “This music is for my Grandparents.” While Frankie never recorded “I’m in the Mood for Love” or “Moody’s Mood For Love” he really did sing them both in the show but as a laugh out loud comedy routine.

    Conversely, Frankie would do, and do so legitimately unlike the comical treatment given to it in Jersey Boys, “My Mother’s Eyes” and other standards from his first “Solo” album: “My Funny Valentine” and “Secret Love.” This would make Frankie and the 4 Seasons more acceptable to parents and even get some of them to go to the shows.

    To your list, both recording wise as well as performance wise, I would add “To Give.” Breathtaking when done live in concert.

    Would “Silence is Golden” fall into this category? Frankie still does this song to this day in his show.

    I would think that the songs from “Romancing the 60s” would also qualify today as “standards.” Prior to “Romancing” Frankie would usually throw in a contemporary song or two into the show.

    Comment by David Cace — July 14, 2008 @ 4:00 pm

  9. I must have missed your ressponse David, but I recalled this thread when reading about “Jersey Boys” having passed the number of performances of such classics as “Funny Girl” and “The Sound Of Music”. I remembered making a comment about the Beatles covering a song from “The Music Man”.

    I would say, and did comment recently, that “To Give” has all the hallmarks of a standard, except the popularity that somehow escaped it.

    “Silence Is Golden” as performed by the Four Seasons has a standard quality to it. I think that the standard lost its brilliance in the faster, truncated version by the Tremeloes. I would still rather hear the Tremeloes version than 99% or more of what’s popular today, though.

    Comment by Ted Hammond — November 7, 2009 @ 7:05 pm

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