Sun 4/13 @ 3pm
Ah! Ethel Merman! Perhaps the least subtle performer ever to grace a Broadway stage, the booming belter bellowed her way through tunes by composers like the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim, and Irving Berlin.
She’s most associated with creating the pivotal roles in Annie Get Your Gun, as the competitive sharpshooter Annie Oakley who unbelievably becomes a meek little bride at the end, and in Gypsy, as the domineering Mama Rose. She’s indelibly associated with tunes from those musicals like “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “You Can’t Get a Man With a Gun,” “Anything You Can Do,” and “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”
Bill Rudman’s Cleveland-based Musical Theatre Project is known for its themed programs of music from the golden age of musical theater. And its next presentation is called The Impact of Ethel Merman (and boy, did she have “impact”).
Rudman will co-host with Nancy Maier, director of the noted musical theater program at Baldwin-Wallace. Adina R. Bloom and Cassie Goldbach will be featured singers.
It takes place at Notre Dame College’s Regina Hall. Tickets are $15-$26.
musicaltheaterproject.org/loud-but-honest-the-impact-of-ethel-merman/