Two legendary Broadway stars - composer Marvin Hamlisch ("A Chorus
Line") and actor Joel Grey ("Cabaret") - will appear together in Braden
Auditorium's Stars on Stage Series at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 22. Tickets
range from $59 to $76.
The box office is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Wednesdays and until 7 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays. Friday the box office opens at 9 a.m., and on Saturdays it is open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The box office phone number is (309) 438-5444. Tickets also can be purchased on line at Ticketmaster or at Ticketmaster outlets.
A child prodigy, Hamlisch began studying piano at the famed Juilliard School of Music when he was seven. He co-wrote his first hit song, "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows," which Lesley Gore recorded and made a hit in 1965. Only six years later he earned his first Academy Award nomination for the song "Life Is What You Make It" for the soundtrack of the "Kotch." He didn't win the Oscar, but within two years made history by becoming the first individual to win three music Oscars in the same year, one for his work on adaptation of Scott Joplin rags for "The Sting" and two for his score and title song for "The Way We Were." Over the next two decades, he racked up an additional eight Academy Award nominations.
`Hamlisch turned his attention to the Broadway stage in the early '70s, creating the music for the landmark Broadway show "A Chorus Line," which won him a Tony Award for Best Score (with lyricist Edward Kleban) and the Pulitzer Prize in Drama (with Kleban and book writers James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante). Until it was topped by "Cats in 1997," "A Chorus Line" held the record as the longest-running musical in Broadway history.
Joel Grey stepped into stardom with pink makeup, slicked-back hair, red lipstick and a "wilkommen" to customers of the Kit Kat Klub at the beginning of "Cabaret." Unknown to nearly all but his family at the time, Grey went on to win a Tony Award, an Oscar for his film rendition and had created a Broadway icon. A regular stage, motion picture and television performer, Grey performed in the 1996 revival of "Chicago," performing the showstopping "Mr. Cellophane," and three years ago as the Wizard of Oz in "Wicked."
Grey made his television debut in 1952, but younger fans would know Grey for television roles on "House," "Alias," "Crossing Jordan," Law and Order" and "Oz."
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