Lovers of Show Tunes Will Adore 'A Broadway Valentine'

A night out on Broadway is always a special occasion. But this weekend, Suffolk Theater will bring The Great White Way to Riverhead in the form of a “A Broadway Valentine,” a one-night only show featuring five Broadway stars performing love songs from some of their best known musicals, and a few of their own choosing as well.

The show is the brainchild of Long Island casting director Stephen DeAngelis who, over the course of his long career, has built up quite a Rolodex (remember those?) of top-notch talent.

“I’ve been involved in virtually everything — including directing and running various theaters,” DeAngelis explained in a recent phone interview. “Then because of success I had in casting, other theaters called me and said, ‘I’m looking for someone … can you help me?’”

He could and did. Over decades, DeAngelis estimates he has helped some 100,000 performers across all entertainment mediums connect with producers and directors.

“I love promoting. I have relationships with people from their early career, gave them opportunities, pushed their careers,” he said.

Given his many personal connections to various performers, DeAngelis hit on the idea of producing one-night Broadway concert evenings based on their availability between shows. To date, DeAngelis, who lives in Port Washington and acts as producer and host for these Broadway cabarets, has produced over 300 of them and he notes that each one is unique in terms of theme, the performers he selects and the songs they sing.

“Every one of them is like lightening in a bottle,” said DeAngelis. “There’s something palatable the audience can pick up on. The opening night of a show is about excitement, the closing night is about emotion — in these shows, the audience is going through both the opening and closing in the same night.”

The next concert offering from DeAngelis is “A Broadway Valentine,” which comes to Suffolk Theater in Riverhead for an 8 p.m. show on Saturday, February 11. Performing will be five Broadway stars — Gavin Lee, Lisa Howard, Keri Rene Fuller, Jelani Remy and Emily Bautista and, in keeping with the season, the cast will perform love songs from shows like “Hamilton,” “Les Misérables,” “Waitress,” “Cats” and “Mary Poppins,” among others.

“My main goal is to have them recreate roles they’ve played either on Broadway or regionally or in a workshop, because the quality of the performance is different when they know the exact context of where a song occurs in a show,” said DeAngelis. “It’s about transporting the audience and seeing the true virtuosity of the performer.”

Interestingly enough, though all the performers he enlists for his cabaret shows are Broadway successes and may encounter one another professionally on occasion, most of the time they only meet each another for the first time on the day of the show.

“I talk to each privately in advance about what I’d like to have them do and perform, then we get together the day of,” said DeAngelis. “The performers are that talented and we’ve clearly communicated. We come out together on the LIRR and go over anything in advance we need to discuss with them. The train ride is our green room.”

For Broadway actor, singer and dancer Gavin Lee, DeAngelis’s one-night productions give him an opportunity to sing songs from shows he appeared in years ago, as well as new material that he loves, but has not yet performed in public.

“I suppose I’ve done 10 of these concerts spread out over five years, two years of which were the pandemic,” Lee said in a phone interview. “But the cool thing about these concerts is Stephen gets five Broadway performers and they’re always so different. It’s not just two girls belting out ‘Defying Gravity.’

“He puts together such variety,” he added. “We’re five performers singing four songs each and we each have a little story about the songs we sing. You get such a variety of musical theater and stories. I enjoy it because it’s different than eight shows a week. It’s just the piano, you and choosing the song and making something of that song.”

Lee has a lot to sing about. Not only did he originate the role of Bert in the West End and Broadway productions of “Mary Poppins,” (for which he was Olivier and Tony Award nominated as well as winning a Drama Desk and Theatre World Award) but he also received a Tony nomination and won the Drama Desk Award for originating the role of Squidward Q. Tentacles in “SpongeBob SquarePants, the Broadway Musical.” He also played Thenadier in the Broadway revival of “Les Misérables.”

But it’s shows like “A Broadway Valentine” that allow him to kick back a little and do things somewhat differently than he would during the run of a big Broadway production.

“These are the songs I sing when I have an audition,” he said of the cabaret nights .“I also do a five minute ‘Mary Poppins’ medley. It’s a little bit stressful because you feel a little naked up there, trying to sell the song. Hopefully, we make it look like we’re all friends up there singing these songs, but in reality, I have never done this show with the same other four actors. Stephen picks and chooses who goes well together and there’s always a lovely Q&A and people get to ask us questions.

“It’s nice that more often than not, I don’t know the other performers. I know what shows they’ve been in, but haven’t worked with them,” said Lee. “It’s like a networking thing, meet new people and see what they’re up to. We talk about auditions and shows and make new friends. When Stephen calls and asks me, I jump on it.”

Speaking of jumping, because Lee played Bert in “Mary Poppins,” he is a very physical actor with strong dancing chops as well, and at Suffolk Theater, audiences can expect to see some impressive moves from Lee, along with his vocal talents.

“One thing Stephen knows is, I’ll always bring my tap shoes along and two of four numbers will incorporate tap,” he said. “Asher [Denburg] is the accompanist and he is so amazing. We each perform four songs that we literally have sheet music for and he plays them. He follows the singer, singing 20 contrasting songs and he makes it perfect.”

Like Lee, Broadway’s Lisa Howard, who received a Drama Desk Award for her role as Rona Lisa Peretti in “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” enjoys the fact that DeAngelis’s one-night cabarets give her an opportunity to meet and connect with new people in the business.

“This is the opportunity for a performer to sing songs that they really love to sing,” said Howard when reached by phone recently. “Sometimes it’s classic Broadway hits everyone knows, or it could be songs by a new composer, or from a show that hasn’t been done in a mainstream way yet. So it’s a great opportunity to do either new material or material you haven’t done yet.

“I think the audience really does have an appreciation for it,” she added. “We love getting to know them and afterward, people want to take pictures and tell us about their granddaughter who also performs.

“They love Broadway songs and Stephen gets great people to come do what they do best.”

“A Broadway Valentine” will be presented at Suffolk Theater on Saturday, February 11, at 8 p.m.. Tickets are $65 to $75 at suffolktheater.com and doors open at 7 p.m. Suffolk Theater is at 118 East Main Street, Riverhead.