Tulane Summer Lyric will return for its 54th season to Dixon Hall on the university campus and in a new venue that has become a popular site for live music: the courtyard of the New Orleans Jazz Museum.
“There was a great deal of uncertainty two months ago that there would be a 2021 season,” wrote Artistic Director Michael E. McKelvey in a mailing to subscribers. “At one point, we were planning to mount a production on the Yulman Stadium football field. Although I liked the adventurousness of this idea, we were all gladdened when the Tulane leadership supported us returning to Dixon Hall to produce a season. So, it is with great pride that we announce that Summer Lyric Theatre at Tulane is back and ready to bring the Gulf South region a summer filled with live musical theatre entertainment!”
The season will open with Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World from June 4-12 at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. Before he won the Tony Award for the stirring musical, Parade (1998), or gained notoriety for his chamber musical, The Last Five Years (2001), Brown announced his presence on the musical theatre scene with a staged song cycle entitled Songs for a New World. Connected by a theme—“the moment of decision”—Brown’s fresh musical voice, infusing musical theatre, jazz, and other popular music styles, is clearly unique and distinctive.
The music of Rodgers and Hammerstein is as familiar to Summer Lyric audiences as the confines of Dixon Hall. To kick off the return to historic Dixon Hall, Tulane Summer Lyric will present a selection of the songwriting duo’s most popular songs in A Grand Night for Singing from June 24-27. Featuring selections from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s nine stage shows and two movie/television musicals, audiences of all ages will delight in this treasure trove of tunes penned by the masters of the American musical, including such classics as “Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” “If I Loved You,” “Shall We Dance?,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” and “It’s a Grand Night for Singing.”
The season will conclude with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar at Dixon Hall from July 15-August 1. Without the backing for a stage production, Webber and Tim Rice produced the song “Superstar” in 1970 and subsequently a concept album for their project about the last seven days of Jesus Christ’s life. Due to the international popularity of the record, a Broadway production was mounted and Jesus Christ Superstar, the first iconic rock opera, was born in 1971. With such memorable songs as “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” “Heaven on Their Minds,” “Gethsemane,” and, of course, “Superstar,” Jesus Christ Superstar is sure to remind audiences of the power of live theater.
The theater will work with Tulane University, City of New Orleans, and State of Louisiana officials to keep audience members, volunteers, and company members as safe as possible. There will be socially spaced seating in Dixon Hall with the capacity set at 250. Ticket buyers will be seated with their party or “pod” together within the confines of an approved seating chart. Audience members will also be required to wear masks and shows may be presented without intermission if possible to limit congregating in the lobby and poster room. The theater will also open earlier for each performance.
For tickets and box office information, visit here.
