Based on the unbelievable true story, Harmony tells the tale of the most successful entertainers you’ve never heard of. . . . until now. In the 1920s and 30s, The Comedian Harmonists sold millions of records, made dozens of films, and sold out the biggest theaters around the world. Their heavenly harmonies and musical comedy antics catapulted these six talented young men from singing in the subway tunnels of Berlin to international superstardom. What happened next is the story of Harmony. Directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Warren Carlyle, this timely and captivating rags-to-riches story lost to history comes to dazzling life with a sensational cast of Broadway favorites.
What’s the use of frivolity in an unstable time? That’s the question asked, in form and content, by Harmony, a light curio of a musical that comes with a riptide of political anxiety. The songs are by Barry Manilow; the setting is Germany in the years before World War II; the tonal incongruity you might deduce from that juxtaposition is, mostly, the point. Harmony takes for its subject the Comedian Harmonists, a sextet of singers formed in Berlin at the end of the 1920s, who toured the world until the Nazi regime turned on the group. The show aims to re-create the crew’s winningly sophomoric onstage antics and try to thread them into a large political history, and it tends to be better when addressing the former than the later, though its by-the-book history hits, at least glancingly, at compelling unease.
Mr. Manilow, who has always shown a flair for infusing melody with drama (or melodrama, at times), and who’s better educated in the music of this period than most of his peers, let alone more contemporary pop artists, has provided the company with both haunting romantic ballads and snazzy production numbers. Mr. Carlyle serves the latter with predictable buoyancy and wit; one romp catches the Harmonists without their pants, while a more darkly comic sequence casts them as marionettes, mocking the servile behavior their fellow Germans have been forced to adopt.
Rush Tickets:
18@18
Price: The first 18 rush tickets will be available to purchase for $18.00 each.
Where: Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street) box office.
Limit: One per customer.
Restrictions: Seat locations for this program vary and may be available in all sections of the theatre.
Digital Lottery:
Price: $49
Where: https://rush.telecharge.com/
When: The lottery will open at 12 AM on the day before the performance closing at 3 PM the day before the performance. Winners are drawn at 10:00 AM and 3:00 PM
Limit: Two per customer
Information: Seats may be located in any section of the theater. While every effort will be made to seat pairs together with a full view, there is a chance that pairs may be split up and that your seat may have a partial view of the stage. Winners will be notified by email shortly after each drawing and have five hours to claim and purchase tickets online. Tickets will be emailed.
1997 | Regional (US) |
World Premiere Regional (US) |
2003 | Regional (US) |
Regional Production Regional (US) |
2023 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Production of a Musical | Harmony |
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