TheatreZone Presents GRAND HOTEL in January

Set in 1928 in pre-Nazi Germany and inspired by a novel and the Oscar-winning film, Grand Hotel – The Musical, rings in the New Year at TheatreZone, serving as a metaphor for a society that is frayed at The Edges and soon to unravel.

         "Grand Hotel richly contrasts comedy, tragedy, glitz, and realism," says TheatreZone artistic director Mark Danni. "Freely adapted from the MGM classic, Grand Hotel's score moves from drama to comedy, torch song to Charleston, as it follows the schemes, plots, secrets, and fates of the unforgettable characters," he adds.

         Based upon Vicki Baum's period novel Menschen im Hotel (People in a Hotel), Grand Hotel is less a story of the idle rich and the poor who serve them than an observation of the quiet rage stealing over a society whose war wounds from WWI only seem to deepen as time passes. In 1928, a corrupt industrialist was a staple of German art and theatre. An American audience would merely have seen him as a fat-cat, but, in the Weimar Republic, particularly just before the Nazis took power, such a stereotype was provocative.                 

         Book writer/playwright Luther Davis (Kismet, Timbuktu!) collaborated with the prolific, distinguished composer-lyricist team of George Forrest and Robert Wright with additional music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. Yeston provided six songs for Grand Hotel and rewrote approximately half the lyrics in the entire show. The talented trio created a seamless musical that boasts an engaging, non-stop book and a powerful score with all of the lavishness of the 1920s.

         Grand Hotel –The Musical directed by Broadway's legendary song and dance man Tommy Tune, arrived on Broadway in November 1989, and was nominated for 15 Tony awards, taking home five winning statuettes. Many of the songs, including Yeston's "I Want To Go To Hollywood" and "Love Can't Happen" and the Wright/Forrest tunes "Maybe My Baby Loves Me" and "Let's Take A Glass Together" contributed to the team's nomination for the Tony award for Best Score. Grand Hotel – The Musical ran for 1,077 performances.

         Grand Hotel - The Musical is one act -- an uninterrupted hour and 45 minutes of continuous movement, directed by Mark Danni with choreography by Karen Molnar and music direction by Charles Fornara. Titled sponsored by Capital Wealth Advisors, Grand Hotel will be performed January 10, 11, 12, 17, 18 and 19 at 8 pm and Sundays, January 13 and 20 at 2 pm and 7:30 pm. Tickets cost $43 and $48 plus a $2 per ticket fee.

         TheatreZone's Season 8 continues with the powerful musical Next to Normal (March 7 - 17, 2013) and concludes with 110 in the Shade (May 2- 12, 2013).

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