“Broadway veteran Matt Bogart will play Billy Bigelow in ‘Carousel: A Concert,’ a collaboration between Music Theatre Wichita and the Wichita Symphony Orchestra,” writes David Burke in Sunday’s (2/5) Wichita Eagle (Kansas). The concert represents “a first-time collaboration between the theater company and the Wichita Symphony Orchestra. ‘We’ve had very happy exchanges from time to time, but this is the first event where we’ve partnered to produce something,’ ” said Wayne Bryan, Music Theatre Wichita’s producing artistic director. “In two performances next weekend, the 52-member symphony will be on stage … with about 16 feet of space for the actors downstage, as well as ramps in the middle and to the sides of the orchestra to another performance level upstage. There will be only the slightest suggestion of a set, but actors will be in costume…. Daniel Hege, Wichita Symphony conductor and music director, will lead the orchestra. The musical’s dialogue has been pared, Bryan said, but retains enough to give audiences a feel for the songs in the context of the show…. Bryan, who praised the Wichita Symphony’s collaboration with other arts groups in the area, said he is hoping a staged concert could become an annual event.”
Posted February 7, 2017
