THEATRE + COMEDY

The High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA)  presents HSPVA's Black History Production of Smokey Joe's Café, running Thursday through Sunday, February 3 through 6, 2011.

NOTE:  DUE TO WEATHER HSPVA's Thursday and Friday productions of Smokey Joe's Cafe have been canceled. Tickets to those shows will be honored at the Saturday and Sunday performances.

Ah, the music of Leiber and Stoller. It is hard to comprehend the incredible contribution that this prolific team made to pop and rock history. This talented duo is singularly responsible for some of the most revered songs in Rock and Roll and Rhythm and Blues. With classics such as “Poison Ivy”, “On Broadway”, “Yakety Yak”, “Charley Brown”, “Little Egypt” and “I’m a Woman”, Leiber and Stoller are legends. Their songs have been performed by The Coasters and The Drifters as well as stars like Big Mama Thornton, Elvis Presley, Ben E. King, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra and Aretha Franklin.

A toe-tapping revue, Smokey Joe’s Café takes us back to the world of transistor radios, sputnik and doo-wop with 37 of the most treasured tunes of the times. With no book or spoken lines, this production lures the audience down memory lane to the early days of Rock and Roll.

The Songs of Lieber and Stoller is a joyous musical revue celebrating over 30 memorable rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and pop classics written by songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. The revue opened on Broadway and later in London in the mid 90’s, and ran for 2,036 performances. The original Broadway cast recording, won a Grammy award in 1996.