By ALAN HOSKINS
The golden age of Broadway music will fill the auditorium at the West Wyandotte Library Thursday, March 28.
The second in a six-part series on America’s popular music made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to Kansas City Kansas Community College, the program is open to the public without charge and will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the West Wyandotte Library at 1737 No. 82nd Street.
In addition to documentaries on the music of Broadway, Breanna Danielle and Guy Gardner will be on hand as guest artists.
A native of the Lansing/Leavenworth area, Danielle is a graduate of the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London, England.
An adjunct instructor at KCKCC, she has appeared in such productions as “Oliver!,” “Happy Days: The Musical,” “The 39 Steps," "Design for Murder” and “Nun Crackers: the Musical.”
A director and choreographer in the Kansas City area, Gardner has been featured in such productions as “Bye, Bye Birdie,” “Footloose,” “Rent,” “Shout” and KCKCC’s production last fall of “Hairspray.”
“Last month’s episode on the blues and gospel music set a wonderful tone for the series and having additional performers share their expertise really made the music come alive,” said Dr. Cherliee Walker, Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at KCKCC and master of ceremonies.
As project scholar, Dr. Walker also has experience in musical theatre and opera, having performed in the premieres of Leslie Bassett's “The Righteous Man,” a cantata composed in tribute to the life of Dr. Martin Luther King and Gary Trudeau’s political revue, “Rap master Ronnie.”
“The golden age of Broadway has given birth to hundreds of musicals penned by writers whose names have been forever enshrined in the Great American Songbook,” said Dr. Walker. “Follow a ‘song plugger’ through the streets of Tin Pan Alley and catch a glimpse of George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rogers, Lorenz Hart and many others in “Syncopated City” from the award-winning series “Broadway” the American Musical.”
In addition to KCKCC and the West Wyandotte Library, other sponsors in the monthly “Film History of America’s Popular Music – From Blues to Bluegrass to Broadway” series include El Centro, Inc., the American Library Association, Tribeca Film Institute and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
