Press Releases
 


August 13, 2002
The Music of Frank Loesser: A Tribute at Southampton College

Performance to Feature Jo Sullivan Loesser and Emily Loesser

Contact:
Patricia Conway (PR@southampton.liu.edu)
(631) 287 8313
Fax: (631) 283 4081

A musical tribute to legendary composer Frank Loesser, featuring Jo Sullivan Loesser and Emily Loesser, will be held at Southampton College's Avram Theater on Saturday, August 24. They will be joined by Broadway's dynamic Nat Chandler.

Frank Loesser, one of the top Hollywood and Broadway songwriters from the 1940s through the 1960s, worked with many composers during his career including Jule Styne, Athur Schwartz, Jimmy McHugh, and Hoagy Carmichael. He wrote "Heart and Soul" with music by Hoagy Carmichael, and "Says My Heart." Some of his other hits included "Praise The Lord, and Pass The Ammunition," "Roger Young" and "What Do You Do In The Infantry?"

In 1948, Frank Loesser produced the score for Broadway's smash hit "Where's Charley" and two years later had an even more successful Broadway show with "Guys and Dolls" which had a run of 1200 performances. It was later made into a movie starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra. His last screen musical was in 1952 for "Hans Christian Anderson" starring Danny Kaye. In 1956, "The Most Happy Fella" opened on Broadway with Loesser's extensive score including over thirty numbers, with duets; canons; folk hymns; arias; parodies; recitatives; and instrumental interludes. In 1960, Loesser scored the Broadway show "Greenwillow" and the following year he worked on the Broadway musical "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" which was revived on Broadway in 1996.

Jo Sullivan Loesser's professional life began as an Arthur Godfrey Talent Scout Show "loser," in "Naughty Marietta." Her first big break came when she was chosen to create the role of Polly in a concert version of "The Threepenny Opera," which, in turn, led to the classic Off-Broadway production "The Bilbao Song" ("The Bide-A-Wee in Soho"). "The Threepenny Opera" eventually became an Off-Broadway landmark event running 2,611 performances. She played the leading role, Rosabella the waitress, in "The Most Happy Fella" and her performance was nominated for a Tony Award. She met and married composer Frank Loesser and eventually stopped working to raise their two daughters, Hannah and Emily. After his untimely death in 1969, she successfully managed his music publishing business, Frank Music, controlling all the music publishing, song and stage rights.

Jo Loesser returned to performing in a tribute to her late husband offering an act entirely made from the Loesser oeuvre. She produced his most famous screen musical, "Hans Christian Andersen," at the London Palladium, and followed that with the 1980 Broadway revue, "Perfectly Frank," in which she also starred. She toured as Sarah Brown in a revival of "Guys and Dolls," and recreated her role of Rosabella in a tour of "The Most Happy Fella." For two years, she developed a show devoted to Loesser and others from Broadway including Rodgers, Lerner and Loewe, Kern and Styne, calling it "I Hear Music…of Frank Loesser and Friends." She opened the show to rave reviews in 1984. More recently, she co-starred with Kitty Carlisle and John Raitt in a salute to Frank Loesser, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Moss Hart, in a show called "Yes, There Were Giants."

In 1989 she introduced her daughter Emily to the New York stage, co-starring with her in the show "Together Again for the First Time." Since then, they have performed together many times and added bonus tracks to the CD of "Frank Loesser Revisited," featuring several Loesser songs from Together Again. She recorded "Loesser By Loesser," a compilation of both familiar and obscure Loesser tunes, performed by her and her family.

Most recently, Emily Loesser played Julie in the BBC concert performance of "Carousel" at Royal Festival Hall in London, having played Sarah Brown in "Guys and Dolls" there last spring. On Broadway, Emily was Stiffy Bynge in "By Jeeves" and Kate Mullins in the Tony-Award winning production of "Titanic." At Carnegie Hall, she sang the lead in the concert version of the rarely heard Gershwin musical, "Tip Toes," and was Kitty in "Where's Charley?" Off-Broadway, she appeared in the hit musical "Swingtime Canteen," and played Dotty in the play "Out of Sterno."

Emily Loesser starred as Yiddle in "Yiddle with a Fiddle" and Liesl in the New York City Opera production (and subsequent tour to Japan) of "The Sound of Music," and appeared as Mirele in "The Witch" for the Jewish Repertory Theatre, both of which earned her an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination. She made her Off-Broadway debut opposite her mother, Jo Sullivan Loesser, in the musical revue "Together Again for the First Time." They have since appeared together in numerous concerts, club engagements and on recordings, most notably "Loesser By Loesser" as well as "The Most Happy Fella" and "Guys and Dolls" featuring, for the first time, all of the music her father composed for both Broadway shows and the film version of "Guys and Dolls," as well as the original orchestrations.

Nat Chandler played Sir Percival Blakeney in The Tony-Award nominated musical "The Scarlet Pimpernel," starred as Raoul in "The Phantom of the Opera" and toured nationally opposite Sarah Brightman in "The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber." Other National tours include Rapunzel's Prince in Sondheim's "Into the Woods" and as Lun Tha in "The King & I" with Yul Brynner. He was nominated for two Barry Awards for best actor in a musical as Phantom in "Yeston/Kopit Phantom!" and as Lancelot in "Camelot." Other roles he has played across the country include Joey in "The Most Happy Fella," Miles Gloriosus in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," Maximillian in "Candide," Escamillo in "Carmen," Danilo in "The Merry Widow," Joe Cable in "South Pacific," and Curly in the 50th anniversary performance of "Oklahoma!" which also featured Emily Loesser. Mr. Chandler has appeared in Pops! Concerts with many major U.S. Symphony orchestras including his latest: "Broadway Knights" due to be released in October, 2002.

The performance will be held in the Avram Theater on Saturday, August 24 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are $40 each and can be purchased by calling (631)287-8480.[back]