Love, Janis (musical)

Last updated
Love, Janis
Music Janis Joplin
Lyrics Janis Joplin
Book Randal Myler
BasisThe life of Janis Joplin
Productions1994 Denver Center
Cleveland Playhouse
Actors Theatre of Louisville
Chicago's Royal George Theatre
Cincinnati Playhouse
1997 Zach Scott Theatre
2000 Bay Street Theatre
2001 Off-Broadway
2001 San Diego Repertory Theatre
2006 San Francisco Marines Memorial Theatre
2007 Kansas City Repertory Theatre
2008 Alley Theatre, Houston

Love, Janis is the musical stage show about the life and music of rock and roll singer Janis Joplin, conceived, adapted and directed by Randal Myler (Hank Williams Lost Highway, It Ain't Nothin' But The Blues). It debuted Off-Broadway in 2001 at the Village Theater (formerly the famed Village Gate) with musical direction by former Big Brother And The Holding Company band member Sam Andrew. The show had a long and healthy run, garnering over 700 performances.

Contents

Productions

Love, Janis was initially produced by the Denver Center Theater Company in May 1994, written and directed by Randal Myler. Onstage Janis was played by Laura Theodore and Catherine Curtin (Stranger Things, Orange Is The New Black) played the private Janis. [1]

Love, Janis was produced at the Zachary Scott Theatre Center, Austin, Texas, running in August 1997 through October 1997. Directed by Randal Myler, Andra Mitrovich played Janis as the soulful singer and Catherine Curtin portrayed the private woman. [2] The musical also played at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, New York in 2000, as well as the Cleveland Playhouse (in 1999) and the Royal George Theatre in Chicago (in 1999, Catherine Curtin receiving a Best Actress Joseph Jefferson nomination). [3] [4] [5]

Love, Janis opened Off-Broadway at the Village Theatre, New York City, opening on April 10, 2001 and closed on January 5, 2003 after over 700 performances. Directed by Randal Myler, Catherine Curtin starred as Janis, with alternating performances by Cathy Richardson and Andra Mitrovich (later singers included Beth Hart, Laura Branigan, Orfeh, and Sass Jordan). Production design was by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer and costumes were by Robert Blackman ("Star Trek"). [6] [7]

Regional productions

There were many regional productions that ran after the Off-Broadway production. The musical premiered on the West Coast at the San Diego Repertory Theatre in September 2001 ( directed by Randal Myler). [8] A production played at the Marines Memorial Theater, San Francisco in July 2006, directed by Myler and with musical direction by former Big Brother And The Holding Company band member Sam Andrew. The San Francisco production included lighting by Bill Ham, the man behind the psychedelic light shows at the Avalon Ballroom and other venues in San Francisco in the 1960s. [9] A production ran at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre (Kansas City) in 2007, directed by Myler which featured Kacee Clanton and Mary Bridget Davies alternating as the singing Janis. [10] The musical ran at the Alley Theatre, Houston Texas starting in January 2008, directed by Myler and starring Katrina Chester. [11]

Concept

The musical was inspired by the best-selling book of the same name by sister Laura Joplin. Myler constructed the musical around the letters that Laura Joplin had given him. [3] The musical begins in 1966, after Joplin has hitchhiked to San Francisco to join Big Brother and the Holding Company, and ends with her death in 1970. Her journey is told in her own words; the entire spoken text is quoted from Joplin's letters and interviews.

Performances include many of Joplin's most famous songs, "Piece of My Heart", "Get It While You Can", "Me and Bobby McGee", "Ball and Chain" and "Mercedes Benz". Music direction for the Off-Broadway production was provided by Sam Andrew, [7] founding member of Big Brother and the Holding Company. A soundtrack album, using the original music and with letters read by Catherine Curtin, has also been released.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big Brother and the Holding Company</span> American rock band

Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. After some initial personnel changes, the band became well known with the lineup of vocalist Janis Joplin, guitarists Sam Andrew and James Gurley, bassist Peter Albin, and drummer Dave Getz. Their second album Cheap Thrills, released in 1968, is considered one of the masterpieces of the psychedelic sound of San Francisco; it reached number one on the Billboard charts, and was ranked number 338 in Rolling Stone's the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album is also listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Will Eno is an American playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. His play, Thom Pain was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 2005. His play The Realistic Joneses appeared on Broadway in 2014, where it received a Drama Desk Special Award and was named Best Play on Broadway by USA Today, and best American play of 2014 by The Guardian. His play The Open House was presented Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre in 2014 and won the Obie Award for Playwriting as well as other awards, and was on both TIME Magazine and Time Out New York 's Top Ten Plays of 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Guare</span> American playwright and screenwriter (born 1938)

John Guare is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is best known as the author of The House of Blue Leaves and Six Degrees of Separation.

Theresa Rebeck is an American playwright, television writer, and novelist. Her work has appeared on the Broadway and Off-Broadway stage, in film, and on television. Among her awards are the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award. In 2012, she received the Athena Film Festival Award for Excellence as a Playwright and Author of Films, Books, and Television. She is a 2009 recipient of the Alex Awards. Her works have influenced American playwrights by bringing a feminist edge in her old works.

<i>Contact</i> (musical) Musical

Contact is a musical "dance play" that was developed by Susan Stroman and John Weidman, with its "book" by Weidman and both choreography and direction by Stroman. It ran both off-Broadway and on Broadway in 1999–2002. It consists of three separate one-act dance plays.

Sam Houston Andrew III was an American rock musician, singer, songwriter, composer, artist and founding member and guitarist of Big Brother and the Holding Company. During his career as musician and composer, Andrew had three platinum albums and two hit singles. His songs have been used in numerous major motion picture soundtracks and documentaries.

<i>Love Letters</i> (play) Play written by A. R. Gurney

Love Letters is a play by A. R. Gurney that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play centers on two characters, Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III. Using the epistolary form sometimes found in novels, they sit side by side at tables and read the notes, letters and cards – in which over nearly 50 years, they discuss their hopes and ambitions, dreams and disappointments, victories and defeats – that have passed between them throughout their separated lives.

Karen Ziemba is an American actress, singer and dancer, best known for her work in musical theatre. In 2000, she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance in Contact.

<i>Love, Janis</i> 2001 compilation album by Janis Joplin

Love, Janis is a 2001 collection of Janis Joplin's performances interspersed with readings of her personal letters to her family throughout her career. It is a companion to the Off-Broadway musical of the same title and the book by Joplin's sister Laura.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cathy Richardson</span> Musical artist

Catherine E. Richardson is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and narrator from the Chicago suburbs in Illinois. She is the lead singer for the band Jefferson Starship and her own Cathy Richardson Band, and has performed the Janis Joplin parts for Joplin's former band Big Brother and the Holding Company.

John Rando is an American stage director who won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for Urinetown the Musical in 2002. He received his 2nd nomination in the same category in 2015 for the 2014 Broadway revival of On the Town.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Milwaukee Repertory Theater</span> American theater company

Milwaukee Repertory Theater is a theater company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Founded as the Fred Miller Theatre Company, the group is housed in the Associated Bank Theater Center, which includes the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater, the Stiemke Studio, and the Stackner Cabaret. Milwaukee Rep produces an annual production of A Christmas Carol at the Pabst Theater. It serves an annual audience of over 200,000 patrons, including over 15,000 subscribers.

Intimate Apparel is a play written by Lynn Nottage. The play is a co-production and co-commission between Center Stage, Baltimore, Maryland, and South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa, California. The play is set in New York City in 1905 and concerns a young African-American woman who travels to New York to pursue her dreams, becoming an independent woman as a seamstress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kacee Clanton</span> American singer-songwriter

Kacee Clanton is a Nashville–based singer/songwriter, recording artist, stage actress, producer, and vocal and performance coach who has worked as a background vocalist for recording artists Joe Cocker and Luis Miguel, and toured as lead vocalist with Big Brother and the Holding Company. She has played Janis Joplin in the musical Love, Janis and was the alternate lead on Broadway in the rock musical A Night With Janis Joplin. She was also a vocal and performance instructor at Los Angeles College of Music. Both her music and vocals have been used in a variety of films, TV shows, and video games. She currently lives in the Nashville area and works as a singer, actor, producer and vocal coach.

Bill Russell is an American librettist and lyricist. Among his stage musicals are Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens and Side Show, which was nominated for the Tony Award as Best Musical.

Pam MacKinnon is an American theatre director. She has directed for the stage Off-Broadway, on Broadway and in regional theatre. She won the Obie Award for Directing and received a Tony Award nomination, Best Director, for her work on Clybourne Park. In 2013 she received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She was named artistic director of American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California on January 23, 2018.

<i>Forever Dusty</i> Musical

Forever Dusty is a stage musical based on the life of British pop star Dusty Springfield. The musical numbers are all songs performed by Springfield during her career. The book of the musical was written by Kirsten Holly Smith, who also plays the lead role of Dusty Springfield in the originating production, and Jonathan Vankin. Forever Dusty opened on 18 November 2012 at New World Stages, an Off-Broadway venue in New York City. The UK Premiere opened on 3 May 2017 at Brookside Theatre, a London Fringe theatre as the start of a UK theatre tour.

Mary Bridget Davies is an American singer and actress. She performs with her own band, The Mary Bridget Davies Group, and is also an interpreter of Janis Joplin's music. She received a Tony Award nomination for Best Lead Actress in a Musical for her performance as Janis in A Night with Janis Joplin. Her band The Mary Bridget Davies Group released an album with original songs in 2012 titled Wanna Feel Somethin.

<i>A Night with Janis Joplin</i> Musical

A Night with Janis Joplin is a Broadway musical that includes works of singer-songwriter Janis Joplin (1943–1970). After 22 previews, it officially opened at the Lyceum Theatre on October 10, 2013, and closed in February, after 141 performances.

Nell Benjamin is a lyricist, writer, and composer noted for her work in musical theatre. With her husband and frequent collaborator Laurence O'Keefe, she won the Laurence Olivier Award for writing Legally Blonde in 2011. And in 2007, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Original Score for Legally Blonde, and then again in 2018 for her lyrics for Mean Girls.

References

  1. ↑ Young, Allan."Review: ‘Love, Janis the Songs, the Letters, the Soul of Janis Joplin’ Variety, May 16, 1994
  2. ↑ Lefkowitz, David. " 'Love, Janis' Extends to Oct 31 in TX" playbill.com, October 7, 1997
  3. 1 2 Simonson, Robert. "Beth Hart Joins Love, Janis Nov. 29-Dec. 31" playbill.com, December 3, 2001
  4. ↑ Jones, Chris. "Back Stage. 'Love, Janis' Shows The Person Whom Joplin's Family Knew", Chicago Tribune", August 6, 1999
  5. ↑ Weber, Bruce. "A Piece of Heart and Soul in Cleveland", Boca Raton News, p. 16E, April 2, 1999
  6. ↑ Sommer, Elyse. "Curtain Up Review. 'Love, Janis'" curtainup.com, April 20, 2001
  7. 1 2 Love, Janis Off-Broadway Listing" Internet Off-Broadway Database, accessed July 5, 2015
  8. ↑ Simonson, Robert. "San Diego Rep Gets West Coast Preem of 'Love, Janis', Sept. 21 playbill.com, September 8, 2001
  9. ↑ Harvey, Dennis. "Review. 'Love, Janis'" Variety, July 18, 2006
  10. ↑ "Rock Musical 'Love, Janis' Opens Kansas City Repertory Theatre's New Copaken Stage" infozine.com, January 31, 2007
  11. ↑ Gans, Andrew. "Katrina Chester Returns to Love, Janis for Alley Theatre Run" playbill.com, December 2007
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.