Celebrate 125 years of Noël Coward in one-night-only New York concert
The York Theatre Company in association with the Noël Coward Foundation, will present ‘I Like America’ on Sunday 6 October in New York.
The concert will feature words and music by Noël Coward and celebrate his lifelong association with America and his 125th birthday.
Coward performing in Las Vegas, 1955
The show will take place at 7:30pm at The Theatre at St. Jeans and will feature Steve Ross, KT Sullivan and Simon Jones.
The evening is devised and directed by Barry Day, OBE and co-directed by The York Theatre Company’s Associate Producing Director Joseph Hayward.
Born on the outskirts of London, it was not long before Coward’s particular spark set the USA alight, with some of his greatest hits travelling from the West End to New York.
“In 1927 Noël made his first visit to the USA and in one sense he never left it,” said Barry Day.
Such was the American audience’s openness to Coward’s work, the more risqué Design for Living (1933) actually saw Broadway before the West End.
This bond between Coward and America only strengthened through the years, with Coward reinventing himself as a cabaret star in 1950s Las Vegas.
In the sixties he premiered his last two musicals on Broadway, Sail Away and The Girl Who Came to Supper, and directed the musical version of his play Blithe Spirit, titled High Spirits.
“As a Brit abroad myself I have some sense of how he encountered and combined elements of the two cultures,” said Day, “how that pond they call the Atlantic can make physical separation irrelevant.”
'Sail Away' advertisements on Broadway, 1961
“Over the years it became clear that he happened to like America, and America certainly liked him. This show is an attempt to capture that mutual attraction: a tribute from one Englishman to another.”
Coward’s work continues to enthral and delight audiences and, 50 years after his death, his popularity endures with his work constantly staged around the world.
Coward’s words and music will be brought to life on stage by singer and pianist Steve Ross, cabaret artist KT Sullivan and actor Simon Jones.
“To have all this incredible talent on our stage celebrating The Master himself is rather like being at a marvelous party,” said James Morgan, York’s Producing Artistic Director.
The concert will begin at 7:30PM. Front orchestra tickets are priced at $50 and rear orchestra are $40.
For additional information or to make a reservation, please call the Box Office at (212) 935-5820, Tuesday–Friday 12:00PM–5:00PM, via email at boxoffice@yorktheatre.org, or book online: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1212962.
