![]() ![]() As usual, the tickets were mis-printed and beared the name "Lisa Minelli", and have since become collector's items. Within days, scalpers were selling the $15 dollar tickets (for the best seats!) for skyrocketing profits, sometimes as much as $200 a piece an unheard of prospect in those days. Within 36 hours of going on-sale, the tickets for the entire three-week engagement sold out, and grossed a record $413,815, of which Liza received $300,000 (which was more money than any other entertainer had ever earned at the theater). It would be her first Broadway one-woman show. ![]() There would be no opening act simply Liza, live. It would be sheer energetic entertainment. It would be 90 minutes of song, dance, and knock-'em-dead pizzazz. Liza boasted that the Winter Garden shows would be an event never before seen in the history of theater. It was a star-studded night, and Liza was overwhelmed by all the applause. This special performance was a benefit that raised more than $20,000 for the Actor's Fund, and at the end of the show, Liza was presented with an Actor's Fund citation as a thank you for her contributions from drama critic Clive Barnes. There were also silent color home movies made during this engagement that exist as well. The January 25th filmed performance was also made part of the Stanley Prager Memorial Collection, part of Lincoln Center's Library. Liza agreed to pay half the cost after she, Fred Ebb and John Kander taped a 50-minute interview on January 14, 1974. The tape can currently be viewed at the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive a division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. That performance was videotaped on black and white film, shot with two cameras (much as LIZA WITH A "Z" was). The full engagement ran twenty four performances from January 6 - 26, 1974, plus a special midnight performance on Friday, January 25th, for the Actor's Fund. And it was so exciting to go to that theater every night and walk through that stage door and up the stairs and see how excited everybody else was, because it really was a new thing to do a Broadway concert show.” “I remember opening night with Bobby and Marvin and all the people I looked up to and went to because they were the best. The after-party was held at The Rainbow Grill in Rockefeller Center, and Minnelli was later rewarded with a Special Tony Award for “adding luster to the Broadway season.” Opening night guests for LIZA included her father Vincente Minnelli and sister Lorna Luft, Halston, Diane Von Furstenberg, Neil Simon, New York’s Mayor Abe Beame, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Dudley Moore, Kay Thompson, Ben Vereen and Kitty Carlisle Hart. These shows also followed a remarkable rush of career milestones including her Oscar in 1973 for her performance in CABARET and her Emmy that year for her LIZA WITH A "Z" TV special. ![]() She was already a veteran of the Great White Way and had won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1965 for FLORA THE RED MENACE. The LIZA shows marked a triumphant return to Broadway for Minnelli. It’s true! So to have this come out, and to be reminded of how it was and how it was received, it’s just lovely!” I always feel like I’ve never done anything. She pauses, then concludes: “It brings back so many memories. “Fred and John were so brilliant at building a show, plus I had Marvin, so we tried all kinds of different rundowns and finally came up with what you hear on the album, and thank God it worked! But you keep trying, and don’t get satisfied with anything but the best.” “The thing about doing a show like LIZA is that every song means something,” Minnelli reflects. Marvin Hamlisch served as musical director, and the celebrated songwriting team of John Kander and Fred Ebb supplied Minnelli with new songs for the shows. Like CABARET, LIZA, written by long time collaborator Fred Ebb, was directed by Bob Fosse, who choreographed it with Ron Lewis. The show itself, which opened on January 6, was simply titled LIZA. The 27-year-old dynamo had sold out an entire month’s run of 24 concerts in 36 hours, setting a house record for the Winter Garden Theater. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |