Arts & Entertainment

Broadway's Best

Neil Berg brings 100 years of history and song

to the Meadow Brook Music Festival stage.

Suzanne Chessier

Special to the Jewish News

N

eil Berg's upcoming appearance
at the Meadow Brook Music
Festival will be very differ-
ent from his years-ago performances in
northern Michigan.
The composer-conductor-pianist, about
to present 100 Years of Broadway, used
to entertain at Harley Fests as part of the
rock band Stone Caravan.
Berg now tours the country with five
singers who have starred on New York
stages and four instrumentalists focused
on Broadway scores.
"The singers get a chance to re-cre-
ate some of their most famous roles, and
we get a chance to look at a history of
Broadway," says Berg, 45, whose Meadow
Brook concert begins 8 p.m. Saturday, July
18."We do the most famous songs, the
meat-and-potato songs, not the obscure,
cabaret numbers."
The audience can expect to hear
showstoppers from South Pacific, Show
Boat, Man of La Mancha, Jersey Boys and
Phantom of the Opera, among others. The
narration puts the songs in context.
"This is the perfect show to introduce
the family to the greatest theater songs,"
Berg says. "We tell anecdotes and stories. I
feel like I'm in my living room and invited
a whole bunch of friends over.
"It just so happens that singing in my
living room are five incredible stars in a
very inclusive atmosphere. I talk with the
audience, and I want people to understand
that it's one big party."
Rita Harvey, who grew up near Saginaw
and shares Berg's real living room as his
wife, will re-create some of the songs she
has performed, perhaps while starring for
five years in Phantom of the Opera and the
last revival of Fiddler on the Roof
Other vocalists are Carter Calvert
(It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues, Sinokey
Joe's Cafe), Ray McLeod (Jekyll 6- Hyde,
Wonderful Town), Erick Buckley (Les
Miserables, Kiss Me Kate) and Lawrence
Clayton (Dream Girls, Bells Are Ringing).
"We cover a lot of territory," says Berg,
whose musical scores fill both already per-
formed and upcoming adult and children's
productions, including The Twelve, The

Neil Berg: "We do the most famous songs, the meat-and-potato songs, not the obscure, cabaret numbers."

Man Who Would Be King, The Prince and
the Pauper and Heidi. "I narrate the pro-
gram"
Berg has been putting together concerts
since attending Binghamton University in
New York State, moving on to benefits and
private parties after graduation and then
to public tours.
The composer-musician continues to
plan fundraisers for the Leukemia Society
of America and Covenant House (a pri-
vately funded agency providing shelter
and other services to homeless, runaway
and throwaway youth), and he has pro-
duced concerts featuring many big-name
entertainers, including Donna McKechnie,
Bernadette Peters and Michael Crawford.
The concert coming to Meadow Brook
has been performed in some 100 cities.
"I wanted a show that a typical musical
theater lover, like my mother — I always
say I put the show together for my mother
— can happily go and hear," explains Berg,
also co-owner of SJR Theater Workshop, a
summer theater camp in New Jersey.
Berg, playing the piano since he was
10, entered Binghamton with the goal of

becoming a professional baseball player.
His plans were to go into law if sports did
not work out.
"I was an English major so I loved cre-
ative writing and playing music, and I was
asked to write a musical," he says. "My first
show was produced by the theater depart-
ment, and that was it.
"All of a sudden, I couldn't believe
how much satisfaction and joy I got,
and I couldn't believe how I could meet
girls by playing the piano for the theater
programs. I wrote another musical and
moved to New York to make connections."
Berg's composing and writing projects
have been moving forward since a pro-
duction of his False Profits was staged
for Off-Off-Broadway audiences in 1991.
An important new project is the musi-
cal Grumpy Old Men, which is based on
the film starring Jack Lemmon, Walter
Matthau and Ann-Margret.
Berg's concert career has included
events with special themes for synagogues.
Sometimes, he has fun jamming with his
cousin Greg Wall, a rabbi and jazz saxo-
phone player considered both New-Wave

and Chasidic.
With a home outside New York City and
an in-town apartment for intense work
projects, Berg devotes free time to his 3-
year-old son, Lucas David, and the Yankees
(he's a season ticket holder).
"I've always gravitated toward songs
about people who overcome or find
some way against all the odds," says
Berg, winner of a 1995 Back Stage Bistro
Award. "The fact that I get to make my
living doing concerts and playing great
Broadway houses is a dream I've never
taken for granted.
"We're coming to Michigan very cog-
nizant of what's going on in the economy,
and we're going to do something special.
We're going to raise the spirit of Detroit,
Broadway style." 1-11

Neil Berg's 100 Years of Broadway
will be performed 8 p.m. Saturday,
July 18, at the Meadow Brook Music
Festival on the campus of Oakland
University in Rochester. $15-$25.
(248) 377-0100; www.palacenet.com .

July 16 • 2009

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