88 stories by "Herb Merrick"
Mary Jane "Mae" West's career as a show business entertainer spanned more than seven decades. Her early career performing in vaudeville and theater was based in New York, and a later career …
Everyman's 35th season opening production and entry into Baltimore's August Wilson Celebration is "The Piano Lesson." It is part of his American Century Cycle, reflecting the Black exper…
The final concert of the 2024-2025 season brought audiences a complete concert version of Verdi's "Aida" performed in Italian with English supertitles and featuring an all-star cast: Angel B…
"Chicago the Musical," originally subtitled "A Musical Vaudeville," with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and book by Ebb and Bob Fosse, is set in the 1920s Jazz Age and based on a …
"John Wilkes Booth: One Night Only," a play written by Baltimore native Matthew Weiner, a graduate of The Park School, marks its world premiere at BCS. Mr. Weiner is an author, actor, televi…
Maestra Hicks, a specialist in film music and the film in concert genre, introduced this final BSO pops concert of the season. She explained that the scores selected for representation in th…
It's always a pleasure to welcome back Jack Everly, the BSO's former principal pops conductor, for one of his well-received programs of the Great American Songbook. For this performance he b…
"The Music Man," with music, lyrics, and book by Meredith Willson, is based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. Set in the fictional town of River City, Iowa, the story follows the tra…
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" is a three-act play by Edward Albee, first staged on Broadway in 1962. It won Tony Awards for Best Play, Best Actress (Uta Hagen), and Best Actor (Arthur Hi…
Maestro Heyward introduced the program as a musical reflection on life. The first selection, AntonÃn Dvořák's "Carnival Overture" (1891), is the second in a trilogy of overtures ti…
Maestro Enrico Lopez-Yanez, an active composer/arranger as well as principal and guest pops conductor of several symphony orchestras, is known for his collaboration with many popular artists…
"Everything That Never Happened," written by Sarah B. Mantell, was developed at the Carlotta Festival of New Plays, Yale School of Drama (2017) and through The Playwrights Realm Writing Fell…
Written just before the pandemic by playwright Eboni Booth, "Primary Trust" was developed at the 2021 Ojai Playwrights Conference and as part of the IGNITE CHICAGO Festival of New Plays. It …
With music and lyrics by Dolly Parton and book by Patricia Resnick, "9 to 5: The Musical" is based on the 1980 film of the same name. After tryouts in Los Angeles, the show transferred to Br…
This concert, a Schirmer Theatrical/Greenberg Artists co-production, featured vocalists Shayna Steele, Chester Gregory, and Terron Brooks with instrumentalists Chris Kuffner (bass) and Jacob…
In 1885 James Whitcomb Riley wrote a poem titled "The Elf Child" in honor of Mary "Allie" Smith, an orphan who lived in his household. The poem's title was eventually changed (via typographi…
This concert, the third in a series of holiday offerings, introduces Baltimore audiences to William Langley, the newly appointed Staff Conductor of the BSO. In this position he will have a b…
"Life of Pi" is a play adapted for the stage by Lolita Chakrabarti from the 2001 philosophical adventure novel by Canadian author, Yann Martel. The novel won the Man Booker Prize in 2002. An…
This concert, the first in a series of holiday-themed programs, features soloists Sherezade Panthaki (soprano), Diana Moore (mezzo-soprano), Thomas Cooley (tenor), Enrico Lagasca (bass), and…
Agatha Christie's 1943 British play "And Then There Were None" was based on her 1939 mystery novel of the same name. In her autobiography, she says, "I wrote the book after a tremendous amou…
"Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start." Those introductory lyrics to "Do-Re-Mi," the most popular song from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The Sound of Music." were firs…
This concert is a tribute to the collaboration of two African-American composer-pianists, Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington and William Thomas "Billy" Strayhorn, who wrote and arranged many cl…
Felicia Curry, vocalist and a member of Everyman's Resident Company, presents an evening of cabaret entertainment in a return to the popular summer cabaret series which Everyman featured at …
Michael Feinstein, pianist and vocalist, is a music revivalist and archivist of the Great American Songbook. He is the Principal Pops Conductor of the Pasadena Orchestra and the Artistic Dir…
The BSO's final concert of the 2023-2024 season reminded me of the four traditional requirements for the bridal attire at a wedding: something old, something new, something borrowed, somethi…