Judy Kaye
Encyclopedia
Judy Kaye is an American
singer and actress. She has appeared in stage musicals, plays, and operas. Kaye has been in long runs on Broadway
in the musicals The Phantom of the Opera
, Ragtime
and Mamma Mia!
and attended UCLA, studying drama and voice. "Her voice spans three octaves. She started out as a mezzo and now sings all the way up to an E natural...but basically she feels she is now a soprano." She "easily shifts between Broadway belt and soaring soprano" according to Playbill.com.
Kaye made her Broadway debut as a replacement "Betty Rizzo" in the original company of Grease
in the 1970s. Her next show was the Broadway musical On the Twentieth Century
(1978), playing only the small role of the maid Agnes, and also the understudy for leading lady Madeline Kahn
. Kahn left the show early in the run, and Kaye took over the lead role. The New York Times
reported "Judy Kaye replaced Madeline Kahn...and bang, boom, overnight she is a star." Kaye also toured the US in the musical.
Her next two Broadway ventures flopped. The Moony Shapiro Songbook (1981), a campy spoof of songwriter-based revues like Side by Side by Sondheim
and Ain't Misbehavin', closed after fifteen previews and one official performance. Frank Rich
, in his New York Times review, wrote "Two members of the company suggest what might have been - Judy Kaye, a skilled musical-comedy comedienne who sings a pretty ballad at a white piano." In November 1981 Oh, Brother!, which transplanted William Shakespeare
's The Comedy of Errors
to the Middle East, closed after thirteen previews and three official performances. Frank Rich's New York Times review noted that "Judy Kaye, while getting campier each time out, remains a big belter with a sure comic sense."
In 1988, Kaye returned to Broadway as Carlotta Giudicelli in The Phantom of the Opera
, singing coloratura
Ds and Es eight shows a week. She won the 1988 Tony Award
, Best Featured Actress in a Musical for this role.
It was nearly a decade before her next Broadway role, appearing as Emma Goldman
in Ragtime
from 1997-2000. (She was the only principal to remain with that show for its entire run.) Next, she appeared as "Rosie" in Mamma Mia!
in 2001-2003, and received a Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actress in a Musical.
Kaye has performed extensively in various theatrical venues, in roles as widely varied as both Julie Jordan and Nettie Fowler in Carousel
, Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun
, Nellie Forbush in South Pacific
, Meg in Brigadoon, Hildy in On the Town, Lalume in Kismet
, Lili Vanessi in Kiss Me, Kate
, Pistache in Can-Can
, Babe Williams in The Pajama Game
, the Old Lady in Candide
, Maria in The Sound of Music
, Rose in Gypsy
, Anna in The Anastasia Game, Aldonza in Man of La Mancha
, Lucy in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
, Sally in Follies
(1995, Theatre Under the Stars), Mary Magdelene in Jesus Christ Superstar
.
Kaye's non-musical roles have included such classics as The Man Who Came to Dinner
and You Can't Take It with You
(1996, Connecticut Repertory Theater, Storrs). In 1996 she performed in The Royal Family at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey
as Kitty Dean. She appeared in Lost in Yonkers
in 2011 as Grandma Kurnitz at the Arizona Theatre Company, Phoenix, Arizona
.
Kaye appeared in Stephen Temperley's Souvenir
, and "drew raves for her humorous, yet touching work" with her impersonation of the legendarily frightful singer Florence Foster Jenkins
. The play originally ran Off-Broadway in December 2004-January 2005, with great success; after a summer run in the Berkshires, it ran on Broadway October 2005 - January 2006, and she has since performed it in several venues in the United States. Ben Brantley
, in his New York Times review, wrote: "Ms. Kaye strikes that single note of personality with a happy mixture of ardor, unblinking obliviousness and ...pitch-perfect period detail."
In June 2006, Kaye assumed the role of Mrs. Lovett
in Sweeney Todd
on Broadway for one week during Patti LuPone
's vacation. She returned in August 2006, when LuPone left for a week to play "Rose" in Gypsy. She went on to play Mrs. Lovett in the 2007-2008 Canada and U.S. National Tour of Sweeney Todd. The Curtain Up review of that tour in Los Angeles praised Kaye, stating: "There's humor in this production...Much of that is due to Kaye's impeccable timing, the delicacy of her yearning and her way with a tuba." Kaye had previously played Mrs. Lovett in the Papermill Playhouse production of Sweeney in 1991. The New York Times reviewer wrote of her performance "it's going to be tough to come up with a Todd and a Mrs. Lovett comparable to George Hearn and Judy Kaye...Ms. Kaye's voluptuous voice taps and illuminates musical treasures. The ribaldry, seductiveness and wit of her performance appear thoroughly rooted in Mrs. Lovett's love for Todd."
The new musical Paradise Found
featured Kaye in a production co-directed by Harold Prince and Susan Stroman
at the Menier Chocolate Factory
in London (May 19 - June 26, 2010). She appeared in the new musical adaption of Tales of the City
at the American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco, California, from May 2011 through July 2011, as Anna Madrigal.
Opera, operetta, and recordings
She has performed frequently in opera and operetta, including leading roles in: The Beggar's Opera
, Orpheus in the Underworld
, Leave It to Jane
, Oh, Lady! Lady!!
, The Cat and the Fiddle
, and Trouble in Tahiti
. She appeared in concert at The Town Hall
, New York, in Eileen, Sweethearts (1983) and Sweet Adeline
(1985). In August 1990 she played the role of Musetta in the Santa Fe Opera
production of La Bohème
. She debuted the role of Abbie in the premiere of Edward Thomas
' musical version of Desire Under the Elms
, presented by the New York Opera Repertory Theater in 1989. She performed the title role in The Merry Widow
at the Papermill Playhouse (Millburn, New Jersey
in 1991. She has appeared with opera companies and orchestras such as the Santa Fe Opera (1985 and 1990), the New York City Opera
(1989), the New York Philharmonic
(1990), the Boston Pops Orchestra
(1990), and the London Symphony Orchestra
(1990).
She has made several recordings, including Where, Oh, Where?:Rare Songs of the American Theater (Premier), Diva to Diva (Varese Sarabande
), which focus on musical theater and "great musical theatre women", and Judy Kaye:Songs From The Silver Screen (Varese Sarabande), saluting women singing in movie musicals. Two other CDs partner her with the baritone William Sharp
, one an all-George Gershwin
program, the other all-Leonard Bernstein
; the latter includes the world-premiere recording of his Arias and Barcarolles.
Kaye is featured on six tracks of John McGlinn
's EMI disc Broadway Showstoppers, four of them numbers from Jerome Kern
's Sweet Adeline
(including the classic ballad "Why Was I Born?") and one a first-ever recording of the "Duet for One (The First Lady of the Land)", the tour-de-force from Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
. She also was featured on the 1997 Varèse Sarabande studio recording of the 1965 musical Drat! The Cat!
.
Kinsey Millhone books
Kaye reads the audiobook of the Sue Grafton
Kinsey Millhone
series.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
singer and actress. She has appeared in stage musicals, plays, and operas. Kaye has been in long runs on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in the musicals The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. Alan Jay Lerner was an early collaborator,...
, Ragtime
Ragtime (musical)
Ragtime is a musical with a book by Terrence McNally, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and music by Stephen Flaherty.Based on the 1975 novel by E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime tells the story of three groups in America, represented by Coalhouse Walker Jr., a Harlem musician; Mother, the matriarch of a WASP family in...
and Mamma Mia!
Mamma Mia!
Mamma Mia! is a stage musical written by British playwright Catherine Johnson, based on the songs of ABBA, composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, former members of the band. Although the title of the musical is taken from the group's 1975 chart-topper "Mamma Mia", the plot is fictional, not...
Biography
Kaye was born in Phoenix, ArizonaPhoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
and attended UCLA, studying drama and voice. "Her voice spans three octaves. She started out as a mezzo and now sings all the way up to an E natural...but basically she feels she is now a soprano." She "easily shifts between Broadway belt and soaring soprano" according to Playbill.com.
Kaye made her Broadway debut as a replacement "Betty Rizzo" in the original company of Grease
Grease (musical)
Grease is a 1971 musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. The musical is named for the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as the greasers. The musical, set in 1959 at fictional Rydell High School , follows ten working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of love,...
in the 1970s. Her next show was the Broadway musical On the Twentieth Century
On the Twentieth Century
On the Twentieth Century is a musical with book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Cy Coleman. Part operetta, part farce, part screwball comedy, the story involves the behind-the-scenes relationship of a temperamental actress and a director.-Background:Comden and Green based...
(1978), playing only the small role of the maid Agnes, and also the understudy for leading lady Madeline Kahn
Madeline Kahn
Madeline Kahn was an American actress. Kahn was known primarily for her comedic roles in films such as Paper Moon, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, What's Up, Doc?, and Clue.-Early life:...
. Kahn left the show early in the run, and Kaye took over the lead role. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reported "Judy Kaye replaced Madeline Kahn...and bang, boom, overnight she is a star." Kaye also toured the US in the musical.
Her next two Broadway ventures flopped. The Moony Shapiro Songbook (1981), a campy spoof of songwriter-based revues like Side by Side by Sondheim
Side By Side By Sondheim
Side by Side by Sondheim is a musical revue featuring the songs of Broadway and film composer Stephen Sondheim. Its title is derived from the song "Side by Side by Side" from Company.-History:...
and Ain't Misbehavin', closed after fifteen previews and one official performance. Frank Rich
Frank Rich
Frank Rich is an American essayist and op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times from 1980, when he was appointed its chief theatre critic, until 2011...
, in his New York Times review, wrote "Two members of the company suggest what might have been - Judy Kaye, a skilled musical-comedy comedienne who sings a pretty ballad at a white piano." In November 1981 Oh, Brother!, which transplanted William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's The Comedy of Errors
The Comedy of Errors
The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's earliest plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors is one of only two of Shakespeare's...
to the Middle East, closed after thirteen previews and three official performances. Frank Rich's New York Times review noted that "Judy Kaye, while getting campier each time out, remains a big belter with a sure comic sense."
In 1988, Kaye returned to Broadway as Carlotta Giudicelli in The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. Alan Jay Lerner was an early collaborator,...
, singing coloratura
Coloratura
Coloratura has several meanings. The word is originally from Italian, literally meaning "coloring", and derives from the Latin word colorare . When used in English, the term specifically refers to elaborate melody, particularly in vocal music and especially in operatic singing of the 18th and...
Ds and Es eight shows a week. She won the 1988 Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
, Best Featured Actress in a Musical for this role.
It was nearly a decade before her next Broadway role, appearing as Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
in Ragtime
Ragtime (musical)
Ragtime is a musical with a book by Terrence McNally, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and music by Stephen Flaherty.Based on the 1975 novel by E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime tells the story of three groups in America, represented by Coalhouse Walker Jr., a Harlem musician; Mother, the matriarch of a WASP family in...
from 1997-2000. (She was the only principal to remain with that show for its entire run.) Next, she appeared as "Rosie" in Mamma Mia!
Mamma Mia!
Mamma Mia! is a stage musical written by British playwright Catherine Johnson, based on the songs of ABBA, composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, former members of the band. Although the title of the musical is taken from the group's 1975 chart-topper "Mamma Mia", the plot is fictional, not...
in 2001-2003, and received a Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actress in a Musical.
Kaye has performed extensively in various theatrical venues, in roles as widely varied as both Julie Jordan and Nettie Fowler in Carousel
Carousel (musical)
Carousel is the second stage musical by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II . The work premiered in 1945 and was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline...
, Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun (musical)
Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley , who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler.The 1946 Broadway production...
, Nellie Forbush in South Pacific
South Pacific (musical)
South Pacific is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The story draws from James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific, weaving together characters and elements from several of its...
, Meg in Brigadoon, Hildy in On the Town, Lalume in Kismet
Kismet (musical)
Kismet is a musical with lyrics and musical adaptation by Robert Wright and George Forrest, adapted from the music of Alexander Borodin, and a book by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis, based on Kismet, the 1911 play by Edward Knoblock...
, Lili Vanessi in Kiss Me, Kate
Kiss Me, Kate
Kiss Me, Kate is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It is structured as a play within a play, where the interior play is a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang.Kiss...
, Pistache in Can-Can
Can-Can (musical)
Can-Can is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, and a book by Abe Burrows. The story concerns the showgirls of the Montmartre dance halls during the 1890s....
, Babe Williams in The Pajama Game
The Pajama Game
The Pajama Game is a musical based on the novel 7½ Cents by Richard Bissell. It features a score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story deals with labor troubles in a pajama factory, where worker demands for a seven-and-a-half cents raise are going unheeded...
, the Old Lady in Candide
Candide
Candide, ou l'Optimisme is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best ; Candide: or, The Optimist ; and Candide: or, Optimism...
, Maria in The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...
, Rose in Gypsy
Gypsy: A Musical Fable
Gypsy is a musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Gypsy is loosely based on the 1957 memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous striptease artist, and focuses on her mother, Rose, whose name has become synonymous with "the ultimate show business...
, Anna in The Anastasia Game, Aldonza in Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century masterpiece Don Quixote...
, Lucy in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is a 1967 musical comedy with music and lyrics by Clark Gesner, based on the characters created by cartoonist Charles M. Schulz in his comic strip Peanuts...
, Sally in Follies
Follies
Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre, scheduled for demolition, of the past performers of the "Weismann's Follies," a musical revue , that played in that theatre between the World Wars...
(1995, Theatre Under the Stars), Mary Magdelene in Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Tim Rice. The musical started off as a rock opera concept recording before its first staging on Broadway in 1971...
.
Kaye's non-musical roles have included such classics as The Man Who Came to Dinner
The Man Who Came to Dinner
The Man Who Came to Dinner is a comedy in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. It debuted on October 16, 1939 at the Music Box Theatre in New York City. It then enjoyed a number of New York and London revivals. The first London production was staged at The Savoy Theatre starring Robert...
and You Can't Take It with You
You Can't Take It with You
You Can't Take It with You is a comedic play in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. The original production of the play opened at the Booth Theater on December 14, 1936, and played for 837 performances...
(1996, Connecticut Repertory Theater, Storrs). In 1996 she performed in The Royal Family at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
as Kitty Dean. She appeared in Lost in Yonkers
Lost in Yonkers
Lost in Yonkers is a 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Neil Simon. After eleven previews, the Broadway production, produced by Emanuel Azenberg and directed by Gene Saks, opened on February 21, 1991 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where it ran for 780 performances...
in 2011 as Grandma Kurnitz at the Arizona Theatre Company, Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
.
Kaye appeared in Stephen Temperley's Souvenir
Souvenir (play)
Souvenir is a two-character play, with incidental music, by Stephen Temperley.Set in a Greenwich Village supper club in 1964, it flashes back to the musical career of Florence Foster Jenkins, a wealthy socialite with a famously uncertain sense of pitch and key. In 1932, she met mediocre pianist...
, and "drew raves for her humorous, yet touching work" with her impersonation of the legendarily frightful singer Florence Foster Jenkins
Florence Foster Jenkins
Florence Foster Jenkins was an American amateur operatic soprano who was known, and ridiculed, for her lack of rhythm, pitch, tone, and overall singing ability.-Early years:...
. The play originally ran Off-Broadway in December 2004-January 2005, with great success; after a summer run in the Berkshires, it ran on Broadway October 2005 - January 2006, and she has since performed it in several venues in the United States. Ben Brantley
Ben Brantley
Benjamin D. "Ben" Brantley is an American journalist and the chief theater critic of The New York Times.-Life and career:...
, in his New York Times review, wrote: "Ms. Kaye strikes that single note of personality with a happy mixture of ardor, unblinking obliviousness and ...pitch-perfect period detail."
In June 2006, Kaye assumed the role of Mrs. Lovett
Mrs. Lovett
Mrs. Lovett is a fictional character appearing in many adaptations of the story Sweeney Todd. She is most commonly referred to as Nellie, although Margery, Maggie, Sarah, Shirley, Wilhemina and Claudetta are other names she has been given. First appearing in the penny dreadful serial The String of...
in Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as then antagonist of the Victorian penny dreadful The String of Pearls and he was later introduced as an antihero in the broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its film adaptation...
on Broadway for one week during Patti LuPone
Patti LuPone
Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les...
's vacation. She returned in August 2006, when LuPone left for a week to play "Rose" in Gypsy. She went on to play Mrs. Lovett in the 2007-2008 Canada and U.S. National Tour of Sweeney Todd. The Curtain Up review of that tour in Los Angeles praised Kaye, stating: "There's humor in this production...Much of that is due to Kaye's impeccable timing, the delicacy of her yearning and her way with a tuba." Kaye had previously played Mrs. Lovett in the Papermill Playhouse production of Sweeney in 1991. The New York Times reviewer wrote of her performance "it's going to be tough to come up with a Todd and a Mrs. Lovett comparable to George Hearn and Judy Kaye...Ms. Kaye's voluptuous voice taps and illuminates musical treasures. The ribaldry, seductiveness and wit of her performance appear thoroughly rooted in Mrs. Lovett's love for Todd."
The new musical Paradise Found
Paradise Found (2010 musical)
Paradise Found is a musical based on the Joseph Roth novel Die Geschichte von der 1002. Nacht . The musical's book is by Richard Nelson, with lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh set to the music of Johann Strauss II...
featured Kaye in a production co-directed by Harold Prince and Susan Stroman
Susan Stroman
Susan Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, film director, and performer. She has won the Tony Award for both her choreography and direction, notably for the stage musical The Producers.-Early years:...
at the Menier Chocolate Factory
Menier Chocolate Factory
The Menier Chocolate Factory is an award-winning 180 seat fringe studio theatre, restaurant and gallery. It is located in a former 1870s Menier Chocolate Company factory in Southwark Street, a major street in the London Borough of Southwark, central south London, England. The theatre stages plays...
in London (May 19 - June 26, 2010). She appeared in the new musical adaption of Tales of the City
Tales of the City
Tales of the City refers to a series of eight novels written by American author Armistead Maupin. The stories from Tales were originally serialized prior to their novelization, with the first four titles appearing as regular installments in the San Francisco Chronicle, while the fifth appeared in...
at the American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco, California, from May 2011 through July 2011, as Anna Madrigal.
Opera, operetta, and recordings
She has performed frequently in opera and operetta, including leading roles in: The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...
, Orpheus in the Underworld
Orpheus in the Underworld
Orphée aux enfers is an opéra bouffon , or opéra féerie in its revised version, by Jacques Offenbach. The French text was written by Ludovic Halévy and later revised by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux....
, Leave It to Jane
Leave It to Jane
Leave It to Jane is a musical in two acts, with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, based on the 1904 play College Widow, by George Ade. The story concerns the football rivalry between Atwater College and Bingham College, and satirizes college life in a...
, Oh, Lady! Lady!!
Oh, Lady! Lady!!
Oh, Lady! Lady!! is a musical with music by Jerome Kern, a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse and lyrics by Wodehouse. It was written for the Princess Theatre on Broadway, where it played in 1918 and ran for 219 performances. The story concerns an engaged young man, Bill, whose ex-fiancée...
, The Cat and the Fiddle
The Cat and the Fiddle
The Cat and the Fiddle is an American romantic musical film directed by William K. Howard based on the hit 1931 Broadway musical of the same name by Jerome Kern and Otto A. Harbach, about a romance between a struggling composer and an American singer...
, and Trouble in Tahiti
Trouble in Tahiti
Trouble in Tahiti is a one-act opera in seven scenes composed by Leonard Bernstein with an English libretto by the composer. The opera received its first performance on 12 June 1952 at Berstein's Festival of the Creative Arts on the campus of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts to an...
. She appeared in concert at The Town Hall
The Town Hall
The Town Hall is a performance space, located at 123 West 43rd Street, between Sixth Avenue and Broadway, in New York City. It seats approximately 1,500 people.-History:...
, New York, in Eileen, Sweethearts (1983) and Sweet Adeline
Sweet Adeline (musical)
Sweet Adeline is a musical with music by Jerome Kern, book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and original Orchestration by Robert Russell Bennett. It premiered on Broadway in 1929...
(1985). In August 1990 she played the role of Musetta in the Santa Fe Opera
Santa Fe Opera
The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...
production of La Bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
. She debuted the role of Abbie in the premiere of Edward Thomas
Edward Thomas
Edward Thomas may refer to:People:*Edward Beers Thomas, American judge*Edward J. Thomas , librarian and author of several books on the history of Buddhism*Edward Lloyd Thomas, Confederate American Civil War general...
' musical version of Desire Under the Elms
Desire Under the Elms
Desire Under the Elms is a play by Eugene O'Neill, published in 1924, and is now considered an American classic. Along with Mourning Becomes Electra, it represents one of O'Neill's attempts to place plot elements and themes of Greek tragedy in a rural New England setting. It is essentially a...
, presented by the New York Opera Repertory Theater in 1989. She performed the title role in The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...
at the Papermill Playhouse (Millburn, New Jersey
Millburn, New Jersey
Millburn is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 20,149.Millburn Township was created as a township by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 20, 1857, from portions of Springfield Township.Millburn also...
in 1991. She has appeared with opera companies and orchestras such as the Santa Fe Opera (1985 and 1990), the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
(1989), the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
(1990), the Boston Pops Orchestra
Boston Pops Orchestra
The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, that specializes in playing light classical and popular music....
(1990), and the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
(1990).
She has made several recordings, including Where, Oh, Where?:Rare Songs of the American Theater (Premier), Diva to Diva (Varese Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums as well as newer releases by artists no longer under a contract...
), which focus on musical theater and "great musical theatre women", and Judy Kaye:Songs From The Silver Screen (Varese Sarabande), saluting women singing in movie musicals. Two other CDs partner her with the baritone William Sharp
William Sharp
William Sharp may refer to:*William Sharp , English engraver*William Sharp , English-born lithographer and painter; lived in Boston, Massachusetts...
, one an all-George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
program, the other all-Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
; the latter includes the world-premiere recording of his Arias and Barcarolles.
Kaye is featured on six tracks of John McGlinn
John McGlinn
John Alexander McGlinn III was an American conductor and musical theatre archivist. He was one of the principal proponents of authentic studio cast recordings of Broadway musicals, using original orchestrations and vocal arrangements.-Biography:John Alexander McGlinn III was born in Bryn Mawr,...
's EMI disc Broadway Showstoppers, four of them numbers from Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
's Sweet Adeline
Sweet Adeline (musical)
Sweet Adeline is a musical with music by Jerome Kern, book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and original Orchestration by Robert Russell Bennett. It premiered on Broadway in 1929...
(including the classic ballad "Why Was I Born?") and one a first-ever recording of the "Duet for One (The First Lady of the Land)", the tour-de-force from Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (musical)
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a 1976 musical with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. It is considered to be a legendary Broadway flop, running only seven performances...
. She also was featured on the 1997 Varèse Sarabande studio recording of the 1965 musical Drat! The Cat!
Drat! The Cat!
Drat! The Cat! is a musical with a book and lyrics by Ira Levin and music by Milton Schafer.Originally called Cat and Mouse, this spoof of late-Victorian melodrama has at its core Alice Van Guilder, who wants to be a career girl at a time when nice young ladies marry well instead of having careers...
.
Kinsey Millhone books
Kaye reads the audiobook of the Sue Grafton
Sue Grafton
Sue Taylor Grafton is a contemporary American author of detective novels. She is best known as the author of the 'alphabet series' featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, California. The daughter of detective novelist C. W...
Kinsey Millhone
Kinsey Millhone
Kinsey Millhone is the name of a fictional private investigator created by Sue Grafton for her "alphabet mysteries" series of novels. Millhone appears in a number of short stories written by Grafton. Grafton's mystery novels featuring Millhone are set in 1980s Santa Teresa, a fictionalized town...
series.
External links
- Judy Kaye - Downstage Center interview at the American Theatre WingAmerican Theatre WingThe American Theatre Wing is a New York City-based organization "dedicated to supporting excellence and education in theatre," according to its mission statement...