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Barry Manilow has to pinch himself.
After greater than 20 years within the works, his long-awaited musical “Concord” — co-written with Bruce Sussman – is lastly Broadway sure.
“Standing in entrance of the theater is admittedly surreal,” the “Mandy” warbler, 79, solely informed Web page Six on the Ethel Barrymore Theater, the place the present will open in October.
“It’s actually taking place!”
The present was first staged in 1997 on the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. There have been productions through the years in Atlanta and Los Angeles.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t till a critically acclaimed run on the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Residing Memorial to the Holocaust in New York – that producers lastly managed to place all of it in place (funding included) for a extremely anticipated Broadway run.
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“We held on as a result of the piece is so essential to us,” Sussman, 74, shared. “We thought that it was a narrative that wanted to be informed and wished to inform it.”
The musical is predicated on the true story of a massively fashionable German singing group, the Comic Harmonists, from the 20s and 30s. The sextet – which was comprised of three Jews and one member who was married to a Jewish girl – was cut up aside by the rise of Nazism.
“As these years have passed by there’s all the time been one thing about anti-Semitism as we put this present on, the “Copacabana” singer shared. “However this 12 months it’s very loud.”
Sussman added that in the course of the present’s downtown run, there have been strains about anti-Semitism that elicited audible responses.
“I used to be truly nervous that folks thought I used to be writing to the headlines,” he defined. “These strains had been there for years so it’s resonating greater than ever.”
Regardless of this, Manilow stresses that it’s “is a humorous present, full of music and a whole lot of laughs so it’s not a severe, severe play. It is a actual musical.”