Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Las Vegas musical ‘The Bandstand’ gets shot on Broadway

The Conductor II

Musical director Richard Oberacker.

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Richard Oberacker, conductor of Cirque du Soleil's “Ka” at MGM Grand, turns toward the audience after conducting members of the Las Vegas Philharmonic during Life Is Beautiful on Sunday, Oct. 26, 2014, in downtown Las Vegas.

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Vegas' Pink Floyd cover band Is it Floyd? and Jersey Boys trumpeter Joey Pero provide the tunes during the Bunkhouse's Dark Side of the Rainbow screenings.

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Richard Oberacker’s dream for “The Bandstand” was not always spoken. He never wanted to put out in the universe that the musical he had conceived and written with Robert Taylor was destined for Broadway.

In Las Vegas, that is known as jinxing your action. But Oberacker can talk about it now: “The Bandstand,” a musical rooted in Las Vegas, is headed for Broadway.

Announced today is that the musical will be performed in Manhattan during the 2016-2017 Broadway season. Such details as the venue, schedule and full cast are to be announced.

But Andy Blankenbuehler, who is the choreographer of the wildly successful Broadway production “Hamilton,” will direct the musical, which on Sunday ends its premiere run at Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, N.J.

The plan for opening “The Bandstand” in early 2016 was so the new musical would not compete with “Hamilton.” “The Bandstand” has drawn universally positive response from critics and audiences since it debuted at Paper Mill.

Oberacker, the music director of Cirque du Soleil’s “Ka” at MGM Grand, had long said he was confident in the evolution of the musical, while saying only that he was working on making the show appealing to Broadway backers.

That group has stepped forward, as the lead producers for “The Bandstand” are a group of Broadway investors: Tom Smedes, Gabrielle Palitz, Terry Schnuck and Tom Kirdahy.

The show is loaded with a swinging score centered in the 1940s, with book and music written by Oberacker in collaboration with his longtime composing partner Taylor, who penned the lyrics.

Oberacker and Taylor, a violinist who has toured with “Disney’s The Lion King,” had been showcasing pieces of “The Bandstand,” originally titled “Bandstand,” since about the spring of 2013.

Art Square Theater and Composers Showcase at Cabaret Jazz were two of the noteworthy venues where Oberacker unfurled songs in the show, and the musical blossomed from there.

“What I feel, mostly, is intimidated, to be honest,” Oberacker said this week as he awaited the formal announcement that the show was headed to Broadway. “We have a show going to Broadway, and that is a lot to live up to. I just have to remember to just write the best thing that I can write and listen to people I trust.

“But these are very high expectations.”

The musical is set in 1945, just after World War II. A group of six servicemen form a band in a regional singing competition, the ultimate prize a trip to New York to vie for a spot in an MGM movie.

The group wins the statewide contest, but the trip to the finals becomes tortuous as they realize that they need to pay their own way to New York while concurrently dealing with post-war trauma.

The lead character, Danny Novitzki (played by Corey Cott), meets a pretty singer (Laura Osnes), who helps fire up the band as it attempts to win the contest’s grand prize.

Cott and Osnes are listed as the leads in the Broadway show; one Las Vegas performer, trumpet virtuoso and actor Joey Pero, also performed in the show at Paper Mill. He, too, will to be in the Broadway lineup. The final cast remains a far-off decision.

“We would very much like to keep the Paper Mill cast,” Oberacker said. “A lot of this has to do with scheduling, who is available when and for how long.”

The work on the show will be continuing. The creative team seems never finished with the construction of “The Bandstand,” even adding the simple “The” to the title.

“It read better,” Oberacker said. “We didn’t want people to think of this as ‘American Bandstand,’ and ‘The Bandstand’ feels like more of a destination.”

Kind of like Broadway. But Oberacker is treating the announcement of a run on the Great White Way as a step rather than the finish line.

“I feel like everything is still on the table. Everything can always be improved,” he said. “We’ll continue to edit the show, add, take away. … I’m up for anything. Andy is really a genius and has never-ending ideas to layer the storytelling.”

Even as he took a deep breath as if to corral his own emotions, Oberacker said “The Bandstand” resonates on a visceral level.

“The experience can be very emotional,” he said. “It’s very emotional for everybody who sees it. The story is a worthy one.”

That is true, onstage and offstage, for “The Bandstand.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

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