Once Upon a Musical: Songs That Tell a Story Comes to Hastings Library
Once Upon a Musical: Songs That Tell a Story Comes to Hastings Library
The cabaret of show tunes and standards is part of an event that helps raise funds to support the library
by Kris DiLorenzo
Hastings-on-Hudson — Fans of show tunes and American standards won’t want to miss “Once Upon a Musical: Songs That Tell a Story” at the Friends of the Hastings Library’s fifth annual gala, to be held on Sunday, June 9th at the library.
“It seemed a fitting theme for a library event,” Trustee Jacquie Weitzman explained to the Rivertowns Current.
Broadway veteran Alison Cimmet, who has participated in all four previous galas, has coordinated the cabaret, which she, Lili Thomas, Anitra Brooks, Nathan Klau, and Jessica Daniels will perform. Steven Gates will accompany them on piano.
Local stars will shine: Cimmet, Klau, and Daniels are Hastings residents; Thomas lives in Dobbs Ferry, and Brooks is a former Brown University classmate of Cimmet.
Cimmet has appeared in seven Broadway shows, among them “The Mystery of Edwin Drood;” regional theater productions at The Old Globe, Kennedy Center, Westport Country Playhouse, and more; and TV shows including “Law & Order: SVU,” The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Bull,” and “The Blacklist.” Also a visual artist working in mixed-media painted collage, she belongs to the Collective Art Studio collaborative space at 145 Palisade Street in Dobbs Ferry and has exhibited her work in the annual RiverArts Studio Tour.
Daniels wears two hats, one as a singer, and the other as an Emmy and Artios Award-winning casting director for film and television. Last fall, she was featured in a Barbra Streisand tribute concert at The Green Room 42, the Yotel hotel in Times Square. (The New York Times has referred to The Green Room as "Broadway's Off-Night Hotspot.”)
Singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and educator Anitra Brooks has toured internationally with Drama Desk Award-nominated puppet performers and masked musicians. As a recording artist, she has released two albums of original music, “Flood” and “I Walk in Your Light.” A Cos Cob resident, she teaches music and movement in the lower elementary school grades at the Greenwich Country Day School.
The peripatetic Klau has performed in regional theater at the Goodspeed Opera House in Haddam, Conn., and at Arkansas Repertory Theatre in Little Rock, and appeared in the national tours of “Jersey Boys,” “The Lion King,” “Forever Plaid,” and “Anything Goes.” His TV credits include “The Blacklist,” “Bull,” and “Boardwalk Empire.” Klau is also a former Yale Whiffenpoof singer.
Thomas, a Hastings native and Hastings High School graduate, developed her chops with the Clocktower Players at the Irvington Theater, and at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Last Sept. 11, she made Broadway history as the first Asian American actress to play the role of Mama Morton, the prison matron in “Chicago,” at The Ambassador Theatre.
Her previous theater credits include work at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and as Cynthia Murphy in the first national tour of “Dear Evan Hansen.” She also appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Lincoln Center.
Jamie Karen and Jenn Gambatese, who sang in the 2022 gala (“Into the Woods”) recruited Thomas for the 2024 “Once Upon a Musical.” Thomas, a Hastings Library member, is now in a workshop developing a new project at Manhattan Theatre Club, but was able to join the cast. “It’s always nice when I can give back to the community that fostered my theatrical career,” she told the Rivertowns Current.
Thomas will sing “Back to Before” from “Ragtime” (music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, book by Terrence McNally); “Big Time” (music by Frank Wildhorn, lyrics by Jack Murphy), which did not appear in any Broadway show; and “I’ll Be Here,” from “Ordinary Days” (music and lyrics by Adam Gwon). She didn’t perform in any of those shows, however. “We’re just singing songs that tell a story, but they’re all chosen for a specific reason,” Thomas said.
“Ordinary Days” tells the story of a woman singing about her experience at 9/11. “I remember being in high school during 9/11 and walking down with my classmates to look at the skyline from the library, so I chose that song,” Thomas elaborated. “It’s a really emotional song, and very much taps into my memory when I think of being at the library.”
Thomas will sing “Back to Before” because she’s working on a new Ahrens and Flaherty musical in development, “but I can’t really talk about it yet,” she added. “Because I’m working with the composers on my next project, I thought it would be fun to sing one of their more well-known songs.”
“Big Time” is rock star Peter Gabriel’s song about making it from a small town to the big time. “Because it’s a concert in my hometown, anyone who knows me from those days probably remembers me wanting to be on Broadway,” Thomas noted. A multi-talented instrumentalist (she plays 10 instruments), she hopes to accompany herself on trumpet a bit, “if I can get it together,” she laughs.
Thomas had never met the other “Once Upon a Musical” singers, and her participation in the MTC workshop kept her from joining the group rehearsal, but she and Cimmet will cross paths when both sing at the Hastings Friday Night Pride event on June 7.
Thomas covets no particular roles or venues. “I think more of my dream things have been coming true over the past couple of years, and I’m just excited to keep working,” she stated. “It was really difficult to be in this industry during the pandemic, so any opportunity to further the art is imperative right now.”
“Once Upon a Musical: Songs That Tell a Story” takes place at the Hastings Library on Sunday, June 9, 5:30-8 p.m. Tickets are on sale at the Library and at HastingsLibrary.org. In advance: $30 for members of the Friends and seniors; $40 for others. Tickets at the door: $50.
Disclaimer: Janine Annett, founder and editor of the Rivertowns Current, is a board member of the Friends of the Hastings Library.
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