Sat 10/15 @ 3PM
Sun 10/16 @ 2PM
Back at the beginning of the year, Cleveland’s Musical Theater Project and the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra presented “Curtain Up at the Cotton Club” at PlayhouseSquare. It paid tribute to a Manhattan club of the ’20s and ’30s that hosted an array of black musical and theatrical talent including Duke Ellington, Lena Horne and Cab Calloway.
The shows were sold out so TMTP and CJO are bringing doing “Curtain Up at the Cotton Club — An Encore Presentation,” with two performances, Sat 10/15 at Lakeland Community College’s Performing Arts Center and Sun 10/16 at Lorain County Community College’s Stocker Arts Center.
It will again feature songs popular during that era that patrons of the Cotton Club would have heard, such as “Stormy Weather” and “I’ve Got the World on a String.” But, as usual for TMTP, it will also feature narrative, film clips and still images to tell the story of a vibrant showcase room where the whites-only audience included celebrities but the stellar black performers, some of them now timeless legends, weren’t allowed out front.
TMTP founder and artistic director Bill Rudman and CJO artistic director Paul Ferguson will co-host. Vocalists Treva Offut, Evelyn Wright and John Morton, and the Joe Hunter Trio with Joe Hunter on piano will join the 16-piece CJO to recreate the music and vibe of the era.
Tickets range from $10-$30.
Lakeland Community College, Kirtland, OH 44094
Elyria, OH 44035