Nice Work if You Can Get It: On Stage April 30 - May 3
This event occurred in the past.

Wyndhurst | Website
  • 0 Reviews

Map


Gilman School is proud to present the area premiere of Nice Work If You Can Get It, the show's first production in the state of Maryland, and one of the very first high school productions of the show in the entire country. Nice Work is a new musical comedy with music and lyrics by the incomparable and legendary songwriting team of George and Ira Gershwin. The show is a re-working of an old Gershwin musical from the 1920’s entitled Oh, Kay! Nice Work boasts a cast of thirty Upper School students from Gilman, Bryn Mawr and Roland Park Country Schools, led by Gilman seniors Wiley Hopkins, Nick Johnson, John Wolf, Morgan Doyle and Wyatt Heritage, and Bryn Mawr’s Ali Regan and Grace Hehir, and Roland Park’s Aly Cirelli and Allie Hough. The show is directed by Gilman’s John Rowell, with musical direction by Bryn Mawr’s Todd Twining and choreography by Shana O’Brien. Gilman’s Peter Lander conducts the orchestra. About Nice Work If You Can Get It Nice Work is a new musical comedy with music and lyrics by the incomparable and legendary songwriting team of George and Ira Gershwin. The show is a re-working of an old Gershwin musical from the 1920’s entitled Oh, Kay! Book writer Joe DiPietro has taken the bones of that older show’s plot and created an all-new—and totally hilarious—story that celebrates the Gatsby-era Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties in high style, and also anticipates the famed Hollywood screwball comedies that would appear in the next decade. Set in 1927 at the height of Prohibition, the show is a rollicking, fast-moving, joke-a-minute tale about a bumbling gang of bootleggers who stash their stock in the cellar of a Long Island mansion inhabited by rich playboy Jimmy Winter, who is about to marry the wealthy and privileged Eileen Evergreen, the daughter of a powerful senator as well as the “finest interpreter of modern dance in the whole world.” Complications ensue when Jimmy falls in love with the female member of the bootleggers’ gang, Billie Bendix, who is posing, quite improbably, as a household servant. Cue the classic mistaken identities and comic misunderstandings that no screwball comedy could do without, accompanied by DiPietro’s whip-smart repartee that is as sassy as it is witty. It’s no spoiler alert to say that, by curtain’s end, true love and romance conquer all. The show features a score made up of some of the greatest and most enduring American popular songs ever written, all by the legendary Gershwin brothers.The string of hits includes “Sweet and Lowdown,” “Someone To Watch Over Me,” “I’ve Got A Crush On You,” “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off,” “S’Wonderful,” “Fascinating Rhythm,” and, of course, the charming title song, among many others. It’s non-stop music, non-stop lyrics, non-stop laughter, and non-stop romance, all wrapped up in a big musical comedy package that delighted Broadway audiences for the duration of its sold-out run, and continues to do so as the national tour production of the show travels the country. The show was a hit on Broadway in the 2012 season, receiving eleven Tony Award nominations in the spring of that year, including one for Best Musical, as well as for its stars, Matthew Broderick and Kelli O’Hara. Supporting players Judy Kaye and Michael McGrath won the Tony Awards for Best Featured Actress and Actor in a Musical for their performances in the show.