Tony Award-nominated Liz Callaway will take audiences back to the rocking 1960s with The Beat Goes On: Liz Callaway Sings the ’60s, coming to Feinstein’s/54 Below cabaret in New York July 25–29, with an encore on September 10.
She is scheduled to sing a mixture of pop hits of the era along with music from the Broadway shows and movies from that period. The show also showcases songs from her 2001 studio album The Beat Goes, plus period songs that have new resonance for her. But she told Playbill that she is finding there is a great deal more to the material than mere nostalgia.
“With music, with theatre, with film—suddenly I’m seeing everything through new eyes. It’s fascinating. I think it’s the perfect time to do a show of ’60s music and this is a great venue for it.”
For example, she said, “It’s really interesting, at this point in our country, to sing [the Lesley Gore song] ‘You Don’t Own Me’ [in which a woman tells a man to stop telling her what to do]. That feels really good. Oh boy, does this feel different! And when I sing [the Beach Boys’] “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” I look at the lyrics—‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we stay together/be married’—and I think about gay marriage. Someone asked me to sing it at their wedding. They’re like these fluffy pop songs, but they also means a lot more [today].”
Many of the songs have grown in significance for Callaway as the years have passed. “There are some songs you’ve always sung and then every decade you’ve got a new insight into it. And there are some songs you have to grow into. For the first time I’m singing ‘Both Sides Now,’ which is a song I’ve always loved, but in some ways I wasn’t old enough to sing. Maybe I have perspective now.”
Callaway made her Broadway debut in Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, received a Tony Award nomination for her performance in Baby, and replaced as Grizabella during the original run of Cats. She has also starred in the original casts of Miss Saigon, The Three Musketeers, and The Look of Love. She currently maintains a busy schedule as a concert and recording artist.
Performances of The Beat Goes On are scheduled for 7 PM July 25, 28, 29, and September 10. Tickets for the concert cost $40–$85, plus a $25 food and beverage minimum.
Here are some of her other scheduled concerts:
July 30 Sibling Revelry with Liz and her sister Ann Hampton Callaway, presented by the Pocono Mountains Music Festival at the Skytop Lodge, 1 Skytop Lodge Road, Skytop, Pennsylvania
July 31 Jock Duncan Celebri-tee Golf and Tennis Outing, Benefit for the Actor's Fund. Play tennis with Callaway or golf with Peter Gallagher. Knickerbocker Country Club, Tenafly, New Jersey
August 28 Stephen Schwartz and Friends, Bay Street Theatre, Sag Harbor, New York
Callaway has been a special guest performer on three of Playbill’s Broadway on the High Seas cruises. Cabins are available for Broadway on the Rhine River cruise August 13-20, 2017, featuring Seth Rudetsky, Andréa Burns, Faith Prince, Terrence Mann, Charlotte d’Amboise, and Santino Fontana. Playbill Travel is also booking Broadway on the Danube River with Michael Feinstein for November 3-13, 2017, also featuring Carmen Cusack, Julia Murney, Christopher Fitzgerald, Marc Kudisch, Christopher Sieber, Brandon Uranowitz, and Rudetsky, as well as other exciting talent to be announced. Tickets are also now on sale for Playbill’s Broadway on the High Seas July 2018 cruise to Iceland, accompanied by Judy Kuhn, Christine Ebersole, Rob McClure, Jarrod Spector, and Sierra Boggess. Visit PlaybillTravel.com for booking and information.
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