Page 4 - ManOfLaManchaProgram-Flipbook
P. 4
Aegean M
Estiatorio
Raw N
with a Twist
EZZE
Dear Friends,
Fifty years ago, a new musical inspired by Miguel de Cervantes’ novel “Don Quixote” debuted on
Live Musical. Four Broadway revivals later, a 1972 film starring Peter O’Toole and Sophia Loren and
Broadway, becoming one of the biggest hits of the 1960s. It won five Tony Awards, including Best
W EST
L
many famous recordings of the song “The Quest” (popularly known as “The Impossible Dream”),
Jazz
, FISH
UEVO
Brasserie Man of La Mancha is one for the ages. It has been twenty years since we last produced it at
Pittsburgh CLO.
The musical’s composer was 37-year-old Mitch Leigh (nee Irwin Stanley Mitchnick), the son of
C OAST
Ukrainian immigrants, who’d grown up in a Brooklyn neighborhood full of, in his words, “kids who
went to jail, not Yale.” His parents (mother illiterate, father a furrier), wanted their son to learn
music, so enrolled him at a public alternative school called The High School of Music and Art,
, LAMB
a project successfully realized in 1936 by Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, who called it “the most
hopeful accomplishment” of his administration. (Leigh would later serve in the army so to take
B
advantage of the GI Bill in college, where he also studied music).
.
ATINO
Years later, headlong into a career on Madison Avenue writing advertising jingles, Leigh was
asked to provide ‘incidental’ music for a Broadway play directed by Albert Marre, who soon after
would ask him to write songs for a new musical he’d be directing for an out of town tryout. The
, OUZO
‘Men of La Mancha’ would also include New York City-born lyricist Joe Darion, whose songs ranged
K ITCHEN AND
from popular to opera, and Wisconsin-born book writer Dale Wasserman, whose hardscrabble
origins (one of fourteen children born to a family of Russian immigrants; orphaned as a child and
jettisoned into a life of self-sufficiency), seem now like an uncanny example of life imitating art,
W INE
in this case the intrepid pícaro Don Quixote himself.
ISTRO
There’s someone I would have loved to invite to our production in this historic theater, built in
B AR
1928, the year he was born. He was the last man standing of the La Mancha creators, and I think
he would been heartened by the multigenerational families here to enjoy his musical, and our
Academy of Musical Theater, where twenty-five years later, parents are encouraging their children
to discover themselves through music, as his parents did.
NEW ORLEANS JAZZ NOUVEAU CREOLE MENU
PPG2 MARKET SQUARE Alas, some stars twinkle beyond our reach. Mitch Leigh died last year, age 86.
porospgh.com
Thank you for being here.
SUMMER 2015 930 PENN AVENUE Enjoy the show! Not exactly what the world was looking
seviche.com for, a musical on ‘Don Quixote.’ It was
required reading in high school.
947 PENN AVENUE Van Kaplan - Mitch Leigh
thesonomagrille.com Executive Producer
Pittsburgh CLO
24 MARKET SQUARE
nolaonthesquare.com
pittsburghCLO.org - 3
Estiatorio
Raw N
with a Twist
EZZE
Dear Friends,
Fifty years ago, a new musical inspired by Miguel de Cervantes’ novel “Don Quixote” debuted on
Live Musical. Four Broadway revivals later, a 1972 film starring Peter O’Toole and Sophia Loren and
Broadway, becoming one of the biggest hits of the 1960s. It won five Tony Awards, including Best
W EST
L
many famous recordings of the song “The Quest” (popularly known as “The Impossible Dream”),
Jazz
, FISH
UEVO
Brasserie Man of La Mancha is one for the ages. It has been twenty years since we last produced it at
Pittsburgh CLO.
The musical’s composer was 37-year-old Mitch Leigh (nee Irwin Stanley Mitchnick), the son of
C OAST
Ukrainian immigrants, who’d grown up in a Brooklyn neighborhood full of, in his words, “kids who
went to jail, not Yale.” His parents (mother illiterate, father a furrier), wanted their son to learn
music, so enrolled him at a public alternative school called The High School of Music and Art,
, LAMB
a project successfully realized in 1936 by Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, who called it “the most
hopeful accomplishment” of his administration. (Leigh would later serve in the army so to take
B
advantage of the GI Bill in college, where he also studied music).
.
ATINO
Years later, headlong into a career on Madison Avenue writing advertising jingles, Leigh was
asked to provide ‘incidental’ music for a Broadway play directed by Albert Marre, who soon after
would ask him to write songs for a new musical he’d be directing for an out of town tryout. The
, OUZO
‘Men of La Mancha’ would also include New York City-born lyricist Joe Darion, whose songs ranged
K ITCHEN AND
from popular to opera, and Wisconsin-born book writer Dale Wasserman, whose hardscrabble
origins (one of fourteen children born to a family of Russian immigrants; orphaned as a child and
jettisoned into a life of self-sufficiency), seem now like an uncanny example of life imitating art,
W INE
in this case the intrepid pícaro Don Quixote himself.
ISTRO
There’s someone I would have loved to invite to our production in this historic theater, built in
B AR
1928, the year he was born. He was the last man standing of the La Mancha creators, and I think
he would been heartened by the multigenerational families here to enjoy his musical, and our
Academy of Musical Theater, where twenty-five years later, parents are encouraging their children
to discover themselves through music, as his parents did.
NEW ORLEANS JAZZ NOUVEAU CREOLE MENU
PPG2 MARKET SQUARE Alas, some stars twinkle beyond our reach. Mitch Leigh died last year, age 86.
porospgh.com
Thank you for being here.
SUMMER 2015 930 PENN AVENUE Enjoy the show! Not exactly what the world was looking
seviche.com for, a musical on ‘Don Quixote.’ It was
required reading in high school.
947 PENN AVENUE Van Kaplan - Mitch Leigh
thesonomagrille.com Executive Producer
Pittsburgh CLO
24 MARKET SQUARE
nolaonthesquare.com
pittsburghCLO.org - 3
