UF’s Phillips Center hosting ’100 Years of Broadway’

March 1, 2007

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Neil Berg’s widely acclaimed “100 Years of Broadway,” a musical revue of Broadway’s most celebrated shows featuring a dazzling cast of five Broadway stars accompanied by an all-star New York band, is coming to the University of Florida’s Phillips Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. March 15.

“100 Years of Broadway” re-creates the biggest moments from the biggest shows of the century featuring the actual stars of shows such as “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Les Misèrables,” “CATS,” “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Jekyll & Hyde.” These amazing performers light up the stage with songs from the hit shows in which they starred. Neil Berg presents brilliantly revived arrangements of Broadway classics, as well as fantastic numbers from Broadway’s newest hit shows.

Past productions of this popular show have featured Bernadette Peters, Betty Buckley, Liz Callaway, Ben Vereen and Alex Santoriello, among others. Along with musical director and pianist Neil Berg, the Phillips Center production could feature Ron Bohmer (“I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change”), Erick Buckley (“Les Misèrables”), Capathia Jenkins (“Look of Love”), Rita Harvey (“Christine, The Phantom of the Opera”) and Raymond Jaramillo McLeod (“Wonderful Town”).

Neil Berg is the composer/lyricist of the hit off-Broadway musical “The Prince and the Pauper,” which ran for two years at the Lamb’s Theatre in New York City. The New York Times described it as “…soaring on the wings of theatrical fun.”

Two of Berg’s new musicals have been selected for the prestigious New York Musical Theater Festival: “The Man Who Would Be King,” a musical realization of Rudyard Kipling’s novella, and “Tim and Scrooge,” the sequel to “A Christmas Carol.” Berg is widely sought to write family musicals. His latest family musicals, “Fiona: The Mother Goose Musical” and “Threads,” recently played to sold-out houses at the Helen Hayes Theater in Nyack, N.Y. Works in development include “Temptation” with collaborators Michael Leeds and three-time Emmy-nominated songwriter John Forster. He is also currently writing the new musical “Twelve,” a rock musical about the Apostles.

Tickets are available by calling the Phillips Center Box Office at 352-392-2787 or by calling Ticketmaster at 904-353-3309. Orders may be faxed to 352-846-1562. Tickets are also available at the Phillips Center Box Office, University Box Office at the University of Florida Reitz Student Union and all Ticketmaster outlets; and on the Web at www.ticketmaster.com.

The Phillips Center Box Office is open from noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and two hours before performances.