UNFORTUNATELY ALL SHOWS ARE POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. THE KELSEY THEATRE IS FOLLOWING THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE CDC AND THE GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY. IT IS IMPORTANT TO US THAT WE KEEP OUR PATRONS, OUR PERFORMERS AND OUR STAFF SAFE DURING THIS DIFFICULT TIME.
Please note: Kelsey Theatre has stadium style seating. Only the handicapped seats are on floor level. All other seats are at least 1 step up or down!
Call the box office at 609-570-3333 to arrange for handicapped seating.
One of classical music’s enduring riddles is why Beethoven devoted four years of his diminishing life (and hearing) writing 33 variations of a rather uninspired waltz. Two hundred years later, a modern-day music scholar is driven to solve the mystery even as her own health and relationship with her daughter crumbles. Moises Kaufman (The Laramie Project) wrote this passionate play that simultaneously explores the composer’s creations and the struggle of the musicologist. The drama is enhanced by a live pianist playing the variations.
Book by Alfred Uhry | Music and Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
Co-Conceived and Directed on Broadway by Harold Prince
Content Rating: MA (For Mature Audiences)
Total Runtime: 2.5 hrs
Intermission: 10 min.
A TALE OF LOVE AND COURAGE IN A TIME OF IGNORANCE AND HATE
Religious intolerance, political injustice, racial tension and the enduring power of love form the explosive ingredients of Kelsey Theatre and Playful Theatre Productions’ next collaboration, the Tony Award-winning musical drama Parade.
Set in Georgia in 1913, it tells the epic true story of one of the most famous, hotly-debated and tabloid-exploited trials in American history. Leo Frank, a Brooklyn-raised Jewish factory manager in Georgia, is accused of an unthinkable crime in a case full of false testimonies and circumstantial evidence. The resulting tale is a riveting murder mystery, a gripping courtroom drama, a moving courageous love story and certainly one of the most powerful new musical theatre works of our time.
With a book by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy) and a rousing, colorful, and haunting score by Jason Robert Brown (The Bridges of Madison County), this examination of the darkest corners of America's history brings with it a moral lesson about the dangers of prejudice that must not be forgotten.
For more details about this show, visit Wikipedia.
Parade Is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI. www.MTIShows.com
Music by Tom Kitt | Book and Lyrics by Brian Yorkey
Directed by Robert A. Terrano
Content Rating: PG-13
Total Runtime: 2.5 hrs
Intermission: 10 min.
STORY
WHAT IF YOU REACHED A FORK IN THE ROAD AND YOU COULD TAKE BOTH PATHS?
How much control do we really have over our path in life and how much is written in the stars? Kelsey Theatre and the MCCC Academic Theatre and Dance Company team up to explore that very question in IF/Then, the deeply moving and highly original musical from the Pulitzer Prize-winning creators of Next to Normal.
Nominated for two Tony Awards, including Best Original Score, If/Then tells the story of Elizabeth, a newly divorced woman who has courageously moved to New York to retart her life in a city of infinite possibilities. When her carefully designed plans collide with the whims of fate, Elizabeth's life splits into two parallel storylines. In one, she is “Liz,” a woman who seeks new experiences, and in the other she is “Beth,” a woman focused on her career. This ambitious and inventive show simultaneously follows one woman's two possible life paths, painting a deeply moving portrait of the lives that we lead, as well as the lives that we might have led.
For more details about this show, visit Wikipedia.
TOM KITT received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as two Tony Awards for Best Score and Best Orchestrations for Next to Normal. Next to Normal also received the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Score. He is also the composer of If/Then (Tony Nom., Outer Critics Nom.); High Fidelity (Broadway); Bring it On, The Musical (co-composer with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Broadway); Superhero (2nd Stage); Disney's Freaky Friday (Stage Production and Original Disney Channel Movie Musical); Dave (Arena Stage); The Winter's Tale, All's Well That Ends Well, and Cymbeline (The Public's NYSF); From Up Here and The Madrid (MTC); Orphans (Broadway) The Retributionists (Playwrights Horizons) and As You Like It (Toho Co., Japan). As a music supervisor, arranger, and orchestrator, credits include SpongeBob Squarepants, The Musical (Tony Nom., Outer Critics Nom, Drama Desk Nom.); Head Over Heels; Jagged Little Pill; Grease Live!; Rise (NBC); and American Idiot. His work with Green Day also includes additional arrangements for their Grammy Award-winning album 21st Century Breakdown and their album trilogy, ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tré! Tom received an Emmy Award as co-writer (with Lin-Manuel Miranda) for the 2013 Tony Award opening number, Bigger. Other Television Songwriting credits include a musical episode of Royal Pains, and songs for Penny Dreadful, Sesame Street, and Julie's Greenroom. As a musical director, conductor, arranger and orchestrator, credits include the Pitch Perfect films,2Cellos featuring Lang Lang (Live and Let Die), The Kennedy Center Honors, 13, Debbie Does Dallas, Everyday Rapture, Hair, Laugh Whore, Pippin (Deaf West), and These Paper Bullets. Upcoming projects include musical adaptations of the films Almost Famous, Magic Mike, and The Visitor.
Brian Yorkey (Librettist/Lyricist) received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as the 2009 Tony Award for Best Score, for Next to Normal. Brian is currently the Executive Producer and Showrunner of 13 Reasons Why for Netflix, Paramount Television and Anonymous Content.
Brian was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical for Next to Normal, and his work on the show earned him the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Score. He partnered again with the Next to Normal team on If/Then (Tony Award Nominee for Best Score) starring Idina Menzel. Brian co-wrote the libretto for The Last Ship (Outer Critic's Nomination, with John Logan), with a score by Sting. His musical adaptation of Freaky Friday for Disney Theatricals enjoyed a National Tour before being adapted into a Disney Channel Original Movie. Current theatrical projects in development include the original musical Jesus in My Bedroom, with composer Tim Symons, as well as stage musical adaptation of Magic Mike.
Additional theatre credits include Making Tracks, which has played off-Broadway and regionally, the musical adaptation of Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet and the play, Book of Jobs with Alex Glover. Brian has directed off-Broadway and regionally and for seven years was associate artistic director at Village Theatre in Washington state, one of the nation's leading producers of new musicals.
He's a graduate of Columbia University, where he was artistic director of the Varsity Show, an alum of the BMI/Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the WGA.
Originally Produced on Broadway by
David Stone, James L. Nederlander, Barbara Whitman, Patrick Catullo, Nancy Nagel Gibbs, Fox Theatricals, Marc Platt
Orchestrations by Michael Starobin
Vocal Arrangements by AnnMarie Milazzo
If/Then Is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI. www.MTIShows.com
Music & Lyrics by Robert Jason Brown
Book by Dan Elish & Robert Horn
Content Rating: PG-13
Total Runtime: 2.5 hrs
Intermission: 10 min.
STORY
FINDING 'COOL' WHERE YOU LEAST EXPECT IT
This spring, Kelsey Theatre and M &M Stage Productions brings you everyone’s favorite show about the geeks, posers, jocks, beauty queens, and wannabes of middle school. With an unforgettable rock score from Tony Award-winning composer, Jason Robert Brown, (Parade, The Last Five Years, Bridges of Madison County) 13 is a musical about fitting in – and standing out!
Evan Goldman is plucked from his fast-paced, preteen New York City life and plopped into a sleepy Indiana town following his parents divorce. Surrounded by an array of simple-minded middle school students, he needs to establish his place in the popularity pecking order and be seen by his pint-size peers as “cool.” Can he situate himself on a comfortable link of the food chain... or will he dangle at the end with the outcasts?
For more details about this show, visit Wikipedia.
"13" was Commissioned by Center Theater Group, Los Angeles, CA
Subsequently produced for The Goodspeed Opera House by Michael P. Price, Executive Producer
Original Broadway Production Produced by Bob Boyett, Roger Berlind, Tim Levy, Ken Davenport, Ted Hartley, Stacey Mindich, Jan Bergere, Broadway AcrossAmerica, Sharon Karmazin, Carl Moellenberg, Tom Miller, True Love Productions/Olympus Theatricals and Center Theatre Group.
13 the Musical is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI).
All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI. ( www.MTIShows.com)
Featuring a group of Mercer County Community College’s most talented students, faculty and alumni, plus guest choreographers and dancers, this modern dance company will sway your emotions and weave a spell with their music and movement.
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by John Frank Erath & Janet Quarterone
Content Rating: PG-13
Total Runtime: 2.5 hrs
Intermission: 10 min.
COMIC TALE OF BETRAYAL LOVE AND DISGUISE
In what scholars believe to be William Shakespeare's first work for the stage, Kelsey Theatre and Shakespeare ‘70 bring you Two Gentlemen of Verona, a comic adventure about young love, false identities, and a band of misguided outlaws.
In this classic work, Young Proteus only has eyes for his hometown sweetheart, Julia. But one look at the beautiful Silvia on a trip to Milan changes everything. Now he’s smitten with his best friend’s lover and his sweetheart has no intention of going away quietly.
Events spin out of control as romantic rivals face off a comic tale that Shakespeare uses to explore some of his most popular ideas - jealous lovers, a cross-dressing heroine, and a daring escape into the forest. This is at once a familiar and completely refreshing story as audiences will see The Bard explore themes that will make their way into his later and greater works.
For more details about this show, visit Wikipedia.
Book and Lyrics by Robert L. Freedman | Music and Lyrics by Steven Lutvak
Based on the Novel by Roy Horniman
Directed by John M. Maurer
Content Rating: PG-13
Total Runtime: 2.5 hrs
Intermission: 10 min.
ONE DOWN, SEVEN MORE MURDERS TO GO!
Kelsey Theatre and Maurer Productions OnStage, the team that brought you shows like The Drowsy Chaperone and Monty Python’s Spamalot, present the uproarious story of Monty Navarro, the conniving killer who helps turn murder most foul into entertainment most merry in the Tony-Award-winning musical comedy A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder.A distant heir to a family fortune, Monty sets out to jump the line of succession by—you guessed it—eliminating the eight pesky relatives who stand in his way. All the while, Monty has to juggle his mistress (she’s after more than just love), his fiancée (she’s his cousin but who’s keeping track?), and the constant threat of landing behind bars! Of course, it will all be worth while if he can slay his way to the inheritance… and be done in time for tea.
Neither the seriously squeamish (nor children over twelve) need fear the comical bloodlust in this story because despite the high body count, this delightful show will lift your heart with a steady stream of memorable melody’s, witty lyrics and non-stop laughs.
For more details about this show, visit Wikipedia.
Robert L. Freedman won a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Book of a Musical for the Tony-winning Best Musical of 2014, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. He was also nominated for a Tony Award for Best Score, with composer and co-lyricist Steven Lutvak, with whom he shared the 2014 Drama Desk Award for Best Lyrics. Among his television career highlights, Robert won the Writers Guild Award for HBO's A Deadly Secret, and was nominated for an Emmy Award and a Writers Guild award for the miniseries Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows. Other teleplays include Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, for which he received a third Writers Guild nomination; What Makes A Family, which received a GLAAD Award and for which Robert was a Humanitas finalist; What Love Sees, winner of the Silver Plaque at the Chicago International Television Festival; as well as the highly-rated true crime dramas Murder In The Hamptons, The Pastor's Wife, Honor Thy Mother, and Bitter Blood. In 2006, Freedman and Lutvak received both the Fred Ebb Award for songwriting and the Kleban Award for lyric writing for their work on the musicals A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and Campaign of the Century. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Robert has B.A. in Theatre from UCLA and an M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing and Musical Theatre from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Robert is currently at work on a film for HBO and Sundance Films. He is married to actress Jean Kauffman, and they are the proud parents of Max Freedman, a writer and community activist living in Brooklyn.
Steven Lutvak made his Broadway debut with his score to A Gentleman's Guide to Love And Murder, for which he supplied the music, and co-wrote the lyrics with Robert L. Freedman. A Gentleman's Guide won the Drama League, the Outer Critics Circle, the Drama Desk and the Tony Awards for Best Musical of 2014. Since its successful run of over two years on Broadway, there have been two National Tours (the second of which is currently on the road), and productions have already been seen in Sweden, Japan, and the first Chinese language production opens this December.
Previously, Lutvak and Freedman won the Kleban and Fred Ebb Songwriting Awards for their songs to A Gentleman's Guide, which was originally developed at the Sundance Theater Lab, and which premiered as a co-production at the Hartford Stage, and the Old Globe in San Diego. Lutvak and Freedman previously wrote the musical Campaign of the Century, which won the California Musical Theater Competition from the Beverly Hills Theater Guild. Campaign was originally commissioned by The American Musical Theater of San Jose, and was later presented in a concert version at Chicago's Humanities Festival, and featured in the New York Music Theater Festival.
Other musicals include Almost September, which premiered on the mainstage of the Repertory Theater of St. Louis, and was subsequently produced at Missouri Repertory Theater, and won eight Bay Area Critics' Circle Awards for its run at Theater Works in Palo Alto, California. The Wayside Motor Inn, his adaptation of a play by A. R. Gurney, began as a commission by the Harmony Project of the National Alliance for Musical Theater, for which Lutvak was named Artist-in-Residence at the Eugene O'Neill Opera Music/Theater Conference. His Esmeralda premiered at the Studio Theater of the St. Louis Rep, and was awarded a New American Work grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Lutvak scored Off-Broadway's Hannah Senesh, which was nominated for a Drama Desk Award, and was later produced at the Zephyr Theatre in Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Theatre Company, the Baltimore Center Stage, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and more recently at Penguin Repertory Theatre. The production also toured throughout Canada and Israel. During the 1994 Toronto Summer Arts Festival, a revue of Steven's songs was presented as part of Garth Drabinsky and Live Entertainment of Canada's New Voices Series. Other works of his have been performed at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, La Mama ETC, Weill Recital Hall and the New York Shakespeare Festival.
Lutvak wrote the title track to Paramount's hit film, "Mad Hot Ballroom", and, the score to "Anything But Love", which starred Eartha Kitt and Andrew McCarthy, and was released by the Samuel Goldwyn Company.
As a singer/songwriter, Lutvak has performed his songs around the country, including such prestigious New York venues as Carnegie Hall, Carnegie Recital Hall, The Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel, Rainbow and Stars and the Russian Tea Room. His two CD's are called THE TIME IT TAKES and AHEAD OF MY HEART. He is also the winner of the Johnny Mercer Emerging American Songwriting Award, the ASCAP Foundation Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award, and is the only two-time recipient of the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Grant. Steven is proud to now be an Adjunct Professor at his alma mater, the NYU Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program.
And now that several of his songs are discussed in David Jenness and Don Velsey's "Classic American Popular Song", the follow-up to Alec Wilder's classic book, "American Popular Song", Steven Lutvak's place in the American Popular Songbook is even more firmly planted.
Steven lives in New York City with his husband, choreographer Michael McGowan, and their daughter, Eliot Rose Lutvak-McGowan.
The original Broadway Production of A Gentlemen's Guide to Love and Murder was produced by
Joey Parnes, Sue Wagner, John Johnson,
50 Church Street Productions, Joan Raffe & Jhett Tolentino, Jay Alix & Una Jackman,
Catherine & Fred Adler, Rhoda Herrick, Kathleen K. Johnson, Megan Savage,
ShadowCatcher Entertainment, Ron Simons, True Love Productions, Jamie deRoy,
Four Ladies & One Gent, John Arthur Pinckard, Greg Nobile, Stewart Lane & Bonnie Comley
Exeter Capital/Ted Snowdon, Ryan Hugh Mackey, Cricket-CTM Media/Mano-Horn Productions,
Dennis Grimaldi/Margot Astrachan, Hello Entertainment/Jamie Bendell
Michael T. Cohen/Joe Sirola, Joseph & Carson Gleberman/William Megevick
and
Green State Productions In association with The Hartford Stage and The Old Globe
A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder was developed, in part, at the 2006 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab at the Sundance Resort with continuing Post-Lab Support through its initiative with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick Vocal Arrangements by Dianne Adams McDowell & Steven Lutvak
A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
Is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI).
All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI. www.MTIShows.com
Book and Lyrics by TIM RICE | Music by ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER
Directed by Lou Stalsworth
Content Rating: PG-13
Total Runtime: 2.5 hrs
Intermission: 10 min.
LOVE, POWER, POLITICS AND A WOMAN WHO EMBODIED THE HOPES OF A NATION
On the heels of mega-hits like Miss Saigon and Newsies, Kelsey Theatre and Pinnworth Productions team up to deliver the musical blockbuster Evita, which tells the stunning story of an ordinary woman’s meteoric rise to power and adoration in a time of extraordinary political unrest.
Set in in Argentina between 1934 and 1952, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Tony-Award winning musical follows Eva Duarte on her courageous journey from poor illegitimate child to ambitious actress, to wife of military leader-turned-president Juan Peron, and finally to the most powerful woman in Latin America, before her death from cancer at age 33.
But at its heart, Evita is a love story. On one hand, it is a romance between Eva and Juan Peron, but on the other hand, it is also a romance between Eva and the people of Argentina, the working class descamisados ("the shirtless ones"), with whom Eva grew up.
As the events in Eva’s life unfold through song and commentary by the show’s narrator, Che, audiences are presented differing points of view on this amazing woman’s life. Was she the Madona of the poor? Or was she a political villianess hungry for power? As audiences are left to decide for themselves, they are carried along through a musical theater masterpiece that includes classic songs such as “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” “Oh What a Circus,” “Buenos Aires” and “Another Suitcase in Another Hall.”
For more details about this show, visit Wikipedia.
EVITA is presented through special arrangement with R&H Theatricals and Two Knights Rights Limited. www.rnh.com.
Book, Music and Lyrics by LIONEL BART
Directed by Kristy Davis
Content Rating: PG-13
Total Runtime: 2.5 hrs
Intermission: 10 min.
AN ORPHAN'S SEARCH FOR LOVE AND FAMILY
Consider yourself at home as Kelsey Theatre and The Yardley Players present Lionel Bart's classic musical based on Charles Dickens' novel, Oliver Twist. A Tony Award-winning and (for the movie adaptation) Oscar-winning show, Oliver! has been hailed as theatrical masterpiece that appeals to the whole family.
The streets of Victorian England come to life as young Oliver, a malnourished orphan in a workhouse, becomes the neglected apprentice of an undertaker. Oliver bravely escapes to London and finds acceptance amongst a group of petty thieves and pickpockets led by the elderly Fagin. When Oliver is captured for a theft that he did not commit, the benevolent victim, Mr. Brownlow takes him in and Oliver seems to have found a home. But, fearing the safety of his hideout, Fagin employs the sinister Bill Sikes and the sympathetic Nancy to kidnap him back, threatening Oliver’s chances of discovering the true love of a family.
For more details about this show, visit Wikipedia.
Oliver! Is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI. www.MTIShows.com
Music & Lyrics by Björn Ulvaeus Benny Andersson
And Some Songs with Stig Anderson
Book by Catherine Johnson
Originally Conceived by Judy Craymer
Content Rating: PG-13
Total Runtime: 2.5 hrs
Intermission: 10 min.
A SEARCH FOR FAMILY WITH A BEAT YOU CAN DANCE TO
Put on your platform shoes, and your feather boas and join us as Kelsey Theatre and M & M Stage Productions presents one of the most popular musicals of all time! Over 60 million people worldwide have fallen in love with this singing and dancing extravaganza based on the music of ABBA.
This sunny and funny tale unfolds on a Greek island paradise where bride-to-be Sophie dreams of a perfect wedding — one in which includes her father give her away at the alter. The problem? Sophie doesn’t know who he is and her mother isn't telling! After a peak at her mother's diary, Sophie secretly invites three of her mother's old flames to the wedding, hoping she will know her father when she sees him, but it's not as easy as she thought.
Told through the legendary music of ABBA, Mamma Mia! includes classics like “Dancing Queen,” “Waterloo” “SOS”, “Knowing Me, Knowing You,” and of course the title number. This smash hit musical is sure to have you dancing in the aisles!
For more details about this show, visit Wikipedia.
MAMMA MIA!
Music and Lyrics by BENNY ANDERSSON & BJÖRN ULVAEUS
And some songs with STIG ANDERSON
Book by CATHERINE JOHNSON
Originally Conceived by JUDY CRAYMER
MAMMA MIA! was originally produced in London by Judy Craymer, Richard East and Björn Ulvaeus for Littlestar in association with Universal.
Additional Material & Arrangements
MARTIN KOCH
Music Published by Universal Music Publishing Group and EMI Grove Park Music Inc. and EMI Waterford Music Inc.*
Mamma Mia! is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI).
All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI. www.MTIShows.com
Produced & Directed by Kyrus Keenan Westcott
Content Rating: PG-13 Total Runtime: 2.5 hrs Intermission: 10 min.
GONE VIRTUAL - JULY 18TH - STAY TUNED FOR MORE INFORMATION
AND THE AWARD GOES TO…
Kelsey Theatre and K2K Entertainment are proud to present The 2020 Kelsey Awards. For the twelveth consecutive year, this prestigeous event is held to celebrate the artists and artisans who bring their passion for the theater to our community.
One part awards ceremony and one part variety show, The 2020 Kelsey Awards is a fun, one-night only, live extravaganza of song, dance and fellowhip. Throughout the evening, performers, technicians, musicians, artistic staff and audience members gather to re-live the best moments and musical numbers from the 2019-2020 season while also offering a sneak peak at upcoming shows. Along the way, awards are bestowed in 22 different performance and technical categories to honor the people who participate in, and make possible, Kelsey Theatre's robust schedule of productions.
And the best part? You, the audience, get to select the award winners. Visit The Kelsey Awards website (www.thekelseyawards.com) to follow the excitement throughout the summer and vote for your favorite peformers and shows as their names come up for nomination. So cast your votes, buy your tickets, come enjoy the show, and sit beside your favorite nominee as the tension mounts and the presenter says those famous words.
And the award goes to...