"Producing 'I Love a Piano' was a memorable experience that I will cherish always. Ray Roderick's concept and construction of ‘Piano’ includes an amazingly large range of the work of Irving Berlin. Performance after performance, I would stick my head into the theatre to 'watch the top of the show' only to find myself standing with the rest of the audience at the final curtain." - Randy Weeks Executive Director Denver Center for the Performing Arts

I Love a Piano is a nostalgic musical journey with spanning seven decades of American history as seen through the eyes of Irving Berlin – a man who Jerome Kern described by saying "Irving Berlin has no place in American music...He is American Music!" The show tracks the life of a piano with one sour key through four generations of singers and dancers who have performed with and around it.

With 6 actors and over 60 of Berlin’s enduring and popular favorites, this spectacular new show captures the spirit of America from the Ragtime rhythms of the early 20th century through the swinging sophistication of the 1920s and 30s. From the sentimental songs that inspired a nation during two World Wars to the innocent optimism of the 1950’s. Timeless classics, such as “White Christmas,” “God Bless America,” “Puttin’ On The Ritz,” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business,”do more than define the music of a generation, they define the music of our country.

Music and Lyrics by IRVING BERLIN Conceived and Written by RAY RODERICK and MICHAEL BERKELEY

Ray Roderick (Director/Choreographer/Co-Writer) - was associate director of Madison Square Garden’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL (director Mike Ockrent) and THE MUSIC MAN Broadway revival (director Susan Stroman). He subsequently directed the North American tour. Off Broadway, director/choreographer: THE ARK, co-writer/director: THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER, I LOVE NEW YORK (Bistro Award, Best Musical Review 1999). Regionally: I LOVE A PIANO (Carbonell nomination, Best Choreography), A CHRISTMAS SURVIVAL GUIDE, I LOVE YOU, YOU’RE PERFECT NOW CHANGE (Denver’s longest running show), HEAVEN HELP US! (Carbonell nomination, Best New Work) ARE WE THERE YET?, SATURDAY NIGHT AT GROSSINGER’S and COMING TO AMERICA. Ray was the founding Artistic Director of Tri-State Center for the Arts. For the past six years, he has been creative director Tennis Association’s US Open. He is the director of BELIEVE, the all new Shamu show at SeaWorld in San Diego. With collaborator James Hindman, he has formed Miracle or 2 Productions, Inc. (Miracleor2.com) which is involved in developing new musicals. They are currently creating a new musical review for Busch Gardens in Tampa. He is married to actress Karyn Quackenbush and is the proud father of high school freshman Jamie Roderick. From left: Karla Shook, Johnnie Moore, Sean Schwebke, Darcie Bender, Mark Baratelli, and Summer Broyhill in "Irving Berlin's I Love a Piano" at the Cutler Majestic Theatre. (paul lyden) Musical revues are tricky theatrical productions. How do you create a framework for songs taken out of context, or in the case of the music of Irving Berlin, sift through the vast catalog of classics written over the course of his seven- decade career?

For "Irving Berlin's I Love a Piano," playing at the Cutler Majestic Theatre through this weekend, creators Ray Roderick and Michael Berkeley came up with an odd, but very clever gimmick: an upright piano with one bad key that follows Berlin's musical career from the early 20th century through the 1950s. The metaphor for the brilliant piano man is apt, and creates the through-line needed for this chronological collection of Berlin's songs.

Roderick and Berkeley clearly had fun selecting the 60 songs they include in the show, which range from the familiar "Always," "White Christmas," and "There's No Business Like Show Business" to the quirky "Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil," "Snookie Ookums," and the haunting "Russian Lullaby." They group the songs around a series of scenes that capture a certain feel for a decade (a music store to start out, a speakeasy, a dance hall, the Stage Door Canteen for the war years). The songs never feel as if they've been forced into their theme. Berkeley's musical medleys keep the tunes moving quickly and the creative pair smartly limits the between-song patter.

Six singer/dancers - Mark Baratelli, Sean Schwebke, Summer Broyhill, Johnnie Moore, Darcie Bender, and Karla Shook - move easily through the music, and although the vocal arrangements don't always flatter them, they deliver the series of sketchy character portraits with enthusiasm and high energy, an essential ingredient in this mix.

Roderick's choreography is simple but crisp and colorful. The high point for the dance came with a series of songs set in a movie theater. As the singers sit in their "theater seats" reacting to imaginary movie moments, they are also singing "Let Yourself Go" and "Change Partners." Then they start dancing, first simple steps in place and then more elaborate moves with partners.

Roderick also works in routines that reference Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers during "The Best Things Happen When You're Dancing," as well as the famous hobo scene performed by Astaire and Judy Garland for "We're a Couple of Swells." He stages the big act one finish with Shook doing her imitation of Kate Smith singing "God Bless America."

The star of this production is the nine-piece band, under the direction of Newton native Alex LeFevre. Although the piano is always at the heart of the sound, there's a rich mix of instruments that get a chance to stand out, including a banjo for "All By Myself," violins in "Blue Skies," and a range of percussion used by both the singers and the orchestra. Yes, "I Love a Piano" leans toward hokey, and is just the kind of musical revue that will do better on a national tour than Broadway, but Roderick and Berkeley have captured both the astonishing range of Berlin's musical styles and the cleverness of his simple rhymes, which makes it easy to understand why the songwriter remains a national treasure. The career­spanning revue I Love A Piano brings together 64 Irving Berlin tunes in a two­hour glance back at the events of the 20 th century­­or at least half of it, from the World War I era through the Roaring ’20s, to the Depression and World War II, and finally to the end of the 1950s.

The songs tie together vignettes of the great events of the American Century by I Love a Piano centering around a piano made in 1910; in music stores, music halls, and even by Kilian Melloy down and out on the street, the piano (despite its one broken note) leads a EDGE Boston Contributor triumphant career that finds six recurring characters crowding around for songs of Thursday Sep 27, 2007 good cheer and sturdy resolution even in the darkest of times.

Berlin’s songs, the fruit of his legendary seventy­year songwriting career, are marked by upbeat tempos, cheerful melodies, and lyrics that flow and cascade with effortless charm. The six performers who bring the songs to life, and the nine­member orchestra backing them up with flawless performances (six of whom are locals), are also cheerful and energetic.

The storyline is presented through dance as well as song, and celebrates styles and cultural influences from various eras as the show moves through the decades. One number pantomimes the silent­movie era with an homage to the physical comedy of Charlie Chaplin; other selections, such as "Everybody Step," "They Call It Dancing," and "Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil" sees the cast doing 1920s dances like The Charleston.

America’s spirit is challenged but unbroken by the hardships of the 1930s, and Berlin’s songs remain defiantly lusty: "Blue Skies" serves as an anthem to optimism, along with "Isn’t It A Lovely Day" and "I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm." "Russian Lullaby" provides a poignant note, and Berlin suggests that we show those blues the door with "Two Cheers, Instead of Three."

The magic of the movies is celebrated when a poor young swain sells the piano for a sawbuck and treats his girl to a night out; after strutting through "Puttin’ on the Ritz," the young lovers, along with two other young couples, settle back into cinema seats and sigh, "I’m in heaven," as they recite "Cheek to Cheek" before launching into a comic frenzy of partner swapping before settling in once more with their chosen ones.

The great war draws America to inspired heights of resolve, and the show sketches out scenes of a young soldier in the Army planning his revenge on the bugler while back home his girl works in a music hall and worries. Calls to arms like "This is the Army" and "Any Bonds Today" are softened Pictured: (l to r) Eileen (Darcie Bender), Alex (Johnnie Moore), George (Mark Baratelli), Ginger by the swelling sentiments of "White Christmas" and "God Bless ( Summer Broyhill ), Jim (Sean Schwebke) and America." Sadie (Karla Shook) in Irving Berlin’s I Love A Piano, an enchanted, toe­tapping musical journey through Rose the Riveter (or a close relation) shows up to wonder, "What’ll Irving Berlin’s America. (Source:Paul Lyden) we do with the boys / When the boys come home?" in a rendition of "What Are We Going to Do With All the Jeeps," and a pair of street performers stroll their way through "We’re a Couple of Swells," "Easter Parade," and "Let’s Go Slumming’."

Then the 1950s come rushing in: backstage at a production of Annie, Get Your Gun! starlets vie for leading lady status (cue up a vivacious round of "Anything You Can Do"), and when art surrenders to life, with the play’s producer being smitten, "You’re Just in Love" sums up his ailments and his exileration.

The piano is, of course, the seventh member of the troupe, and the voice it’s given by the backstage orchestra is full and sweet.

For their part, the cast not only sing with gusto, they carry out a clockwork choreography in which every step and every breath is carefully laid out so that the action on the stage is like a kaleidoscope of movement: director and choreographer Ray Roderick runs a tight, smooth show, but doesn’t strangle it, and Ed McCarthy’s lighting design compliments every number.

Sam Fleming’s costumes provide flair and color, too, serving as a visual cue for the times as the show progresses. Each character is costumed in a way that adds to his or her distinct role.

If you’re looking for a shot of vibrant good spirits set to Berlin’s jazzy masterpieces, I Love a Piano is a powerhouse of delights. Page 1 of 1

The Colonial Theatre

A revue to hum by

By Jeffrey Borak, Berkshire Eagle Staff Berkshire Eagle

Article Last Updated:10/16/2007 04:17:27 PM EDT

Wednesday, October 17 PITTSFIELD — If you've been yearning for those days when you could walk out of a musical humming the score, you might want to check out the Colonial Theatre in downtown Pittsfield where an amiable, smartly crafted, and very hummable, revue, "I Love a Piano," finishes up a three-night stay tonight before continuing its 38-week national tour.

"I Love a Piano" is built around the songs of Irving Berlin, who, in a career spanning well over five decades, composed over 1,000 songs.

An Eastern European immigrant, Berlin began his career singing for pennies on the streets of New York's Lower East Side in 1901 at the age of 13. He died on Sept. 22, 1989 at the age of 101. It is no exaggeration to say that more than any other writer of popular songs — more than Gershwin, more than Porter, more than Coleman, Styne or Loesser — Berlin wrote the American songbook.

His lyrics are not as sophisticated as Porter's; his melody lines not as complex as Gershwin's. His comparative simplicity, especially as reflected in "I Love a Piano," is born of a sunny optimism, an appeal that is direct and hard to resist.

z

Beginning in the early teens and ending in the 1950s with Berlin's Broadway music — specifically "Annie Get Your Gun" and "Call Me Madam" — "I Love a Piano" is as much a survey of the first 50 years of 20th century American popular culture and social history as it is an exploration of an American master's body of work.

The show's creators, Ray Roderick, who also directed and choreographed, and Michael Berkeley, who did the terrific arrangements, see Berlin as the people's songwriter. While "I Love a Piano" is about Irving Berlin's music, along the way the show examines the ways in which popular music both shapes and reflects its culture; the ways in which music connects and interacts with everyday people in a variety of settings and contexts.

The central image is an old piano that is traced from a music store in the early 19-teens to a parlor, a 1920s speakeasy, a New York street just after the Stock Market crash of 1929, a 1930s movie theater and then dance hall, Stage Door Canteen during and after World War II, a junkyard in the early 1950s, and, finally, in the late 1950s, a summer stock company where auditions are being held for the theater's production of "Annie Get Your Gun." That segment includes a clever, if also obvious, treatment of "Anything You Can Do" as a fierce competition among the three actresses — played by Summer Broyhill, Darcey Bender and Karla Shook — who are competing for the role of Annie Oakley.

z

"I Love a Piano" goes about its business purposefully — sentiment without sentimentality — and with a smooth, easy, logical flow.

Berlin's songs are handled with unassuming ease by Mark Baratelli, Sean Schwebke, Johnnie Moore and the aforementioned Broyhill, Bender (who delivers a touching "What'll I Do?) and especially Shook, who's been a regular at the Mac-Haydn Theatre and Cohes Music Hall. Shook is a bundle of talent with a voice that, in its maturation, has wonderfully expressive expansive range, from the delicacy of "Russian Lullaby" and "Suppertime" to the antic high-jinks of "Anything You Can Do."

You'll love this "Piano."

To reach Jeffrey Borak: [email protected], (413) 496-6212

Close Window Send To Printer

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?articleId=... 10/18/2007

By David C. Nichols THE BOUNTY OF BERLIN THE MUSICAL THEATRE WEST REVUE "I LOVE A PIANO" TRAVERSES SEVEN DECADES AND MORE THAN 60 IRVING BERLIN SONGS.

When asked where Irving Berlin ranked in American music, fellow giant Jerome Kern famously said, "Irving Berlin has no place in American music. He is American music." The enduring truth of Kern's assessment underpins the showbiz panache of "I Love a Piano," presented by Musical Theatre West. This delightful West Coast premiere of Ray Roderick and Michael Berkeley's salute to America's greatest tunesmith is as invigorating a song-catalog revue as any since "Ain't Misbehavin'."

A regional success, "I Love a Piano" refreshes its oft-abused genre. Instead of random numbers or chronicling Berlin's career, Roderick (who directs and choreographs the show) and Berkeley focus on the title instrument. Its passage across 70 years of national identity forms an overview through which 64 Berlin songs supply narrative. It proves a masterstroke.

A brief overture from musical director John Glaudini and his superb orchestra accompanies three moving men, who deposit the piano. The six prototypal characters launch a present-day prologue that seamlessly segues to Alexander's Music Shop in the early 1900s. From here, "Piano" takes flight and rarely comes down thereafter. This stems from Berlin's matchless output and the six sublime performers who send the surefire material straight to our solar plexus.

Although Dan Pacheco could use seasoning, his boyish bravado suits juvenile Jim, and Jill Townsend is exemplary as ingenue Eileen. Stephen Breithaupt's animated Alex meets his match in the marvelous Julie Dixon Jackson, who as Sadie invisibly flips from screwball to soulful. As George, Kevin Earley has never been better, and Kathi Gillmore, her mercurial Ginger both droll and vulnerable, is a discovery.

Roderick's inventive staging trumps theme-park contours with style and heart. Designs are plush, especially Todd K. Proto's kaleidoscopic costumes and Debra Garcia Lockwood's lighting, and there are too many witty moments to recount beyond three examples.

The first is the Act 1 ending, after draft letters intrude on a dancing medley and move us into Berlin's World War II output. This builds to a touching "White Christmas," then "God Bless America," as Pacheco and Townsend simulate the famous Life cover embrace to heart-stopping effect.

The second is the hysterical backstage sequence in Act 2. This peaks with Breithaupt and Jackson belting out "You're Just in Love," Earley and Gillmore tearing into "An Old Fashioned Wedding" and then both songs at once, which rocks the house. Finally, there is the finale, everyone in modern cocktail garb and the title song bringing it home. I knew 15 minutes in that I was thoroughly enjoying "I Love a Piano" - by the ending, I was in love. Blame it on Berlin, and Roderick and Berkeley, and everyone else connected with this enchanting entertainment. By Les Spindle- I LOVE A PIANO

Last summer, producer-creator Tripp Hornick presented the West Coast premiere of The Melody Lingers On: The Songs of Irving Berlin at North Hollywood's El Portal Theatre. The far superior I Love a Piano, by Ray Roderick and Michael Berkeley, now in its West Coast premiere, is another Berlin greatest- hits cavalcade. Less pretentious than the semibiographical Melody, Piano gets right down to business, offering 60-plus immortal Berlin tunes. Director- choreographer Roderick, music director John Glaudini, and a dream cast of triple-threat performers parlay the glorious Berlin canon into a tuneful and exhilarating show.

The writers devised an effective linking device: The famous Berlin ditty of the title is the springboard for a thin narrative about a piano that passes through several owners, beginning in the Tin Pan Alley era, circa 1911, when Berlin launched his career, and ending during a late-1950s summer-stock casting session for Berlin's 1946 musical, Annie Get Your Gun. This framing device allows for logical groupings of songs, such as the World War II segment spotlighting Berlin's patriotic "God Bless America" and his rousing military songs.

The ensemble is so evenly matched it's impossible to pick favorites. It's immensely satisfying to see Kevin Earley spread his comedic wings. He lets his hair down to delightful effect here, making the most of Roderick's lighthearted concepts. And that magnificent baritone voice sounds resplendent when he lets loose on "How Deep Is the Ocean?" and other soaring Berlin ballads. Julie Dixon Jackson is also in stellar form. She croons the heart-wrenching "Suppertime" with unbridled panache and shares a dazzling "You're Just in Love" with the versatile and dynamic Stephen Breithaupt. Dan Pacheco exudes charm and pizzazz, as in the snappy dance number "Puttin' On the Ritz" and the delicious hobo routine "We're a Couple of Swells," sharing it with effervescent pixie Jill Townsend. The captivating Kathi Gillmore is equally adept at belting out classic tunes and nailing choice comic bits. Design credits are likewise classy-the icing on the cake for this triumphant showcase-offering top-notch performers relishing some of the finest show music of all time.

Posted: Fri., Sep. 6, 2002, 2:25pm PT

I Love A Piano

(Denver Auditorium, Denver; 2,089 Seats; $55 )

A Denver Center Attractions presentation of a musical revue in one act featuring music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, conceived and written by Ray Roderick and Michael Berkeley. Directed and choreographed by Roderick.

With: Stephanie J. Block, Jeffrey Denman, Michael E. Gold, Ellie Mooney, Alex Ryer, Shonn Wiley.

By ALLEN YOUNG

Ray Roderick may love a piano, but his heart truly belongs to Irving Berlin. Roderick directed and choreographed this tribute revue and co-wrote it with Michael Berkeley. His affection for Berlin's songs has resulted in an energetic, animated presentation of nearly 60 of Berlin's tunes, ranging from 1911's "Alexander's Ragtime Band" to selections from 1950's "Call Me Madam."

The aim is not to re-create the atmosphere of each song but to give them new life for contemporary audiences. Thanks to his adroit direction of his nimble cast, Roderick largely succeeds. The strutting, cajoling, embracing songs are newly revealed to an audience that has somehow escaped the wizardry of Berlin's achievements over much of the 20th century.

Both youth and middle age are represented in the casting. Michael E. Gold, at the upper end of the age spectrum, provides a firm anchor for the wide-ranging time frame. Alex Ryer illuminates the tragic "Supper Time" and proves that Berlin songs do not have to be sold -- just expressed personally. Later she comes on looking like a Kate Smith double to sing (inevitably) "God Bless America."

Jeffrey Denman reaches a peak with perhaps the loveliest song heard all evening, "How Deep Is the Ocean." His warm baritone is enjoyable throughout the show, notably in "The Girl That I Marry." He also has a talent for comedy that is put to good use. Ellie Mooney, a tiny blonde with a big voice and singular comic abilities, teams with Shonn Wiley, the youngest of the group, on an "Easter Parade" that is a high point of the show. Stephanie Block delivers sweetly and is heard to amiable effect throughout.

Chronology may not seem important to today's audiences, but the lack of it here deprives us of observing the composer's development. Another quibble: Too many songs are merely belted that might better be presented in less strenuous fashion, particularly in the first part of the show.

Still, individually and in ensemble, the singers are fresh and appealing, and ultimately triumph, along with the show, over poor acoustics and a tinny sound system. A simple setting or arches and screens for appropriate projections seems just right.

Musical director, John Glaudini. Sets, Larry Gruber; costumes, Sam Fleming; lighting, Ed McCarthy; sound, Thomas Craft; stage manager, Gary Miller. Opened Aug. 13, 2002. Running time: 1 HOUR, 45 MIN.

Date in print: Sun., Sep. 8, 2002,