Seven Angels kicks off year with new programs
Seven Angels Theatre in Waterbury has changed up its programming style, offering a winter concert series starting this month and a four-show “mini-season” of plays and musicals beginning in March.
Several theaters in Connecticut have now integrated one-night concert events more heavily into their seasons. One example is the Westport Country Playhouse, which has upped its one-nighter events and decreased its programming of multi-week theater shows while it transitions to new leadership.
Seven Angels, which inhabits a former skating rink building in Waterbury’s Hamilton Park, has been offering concerts amid its plays and musicals for decades, including such traditions as a New Year’s stand-up comedy show. Some of the artists who have brought their concert shows to Seven Angels, like erstwhile “Imus in the Morning” radio regular Rob Bartlett, have also created theater shows that have been staged at the theater.
The Seven Angels Theatre Winter Concert Series offers nine shows between Jan. 20 and March 30, some back-to-back on the same weekend and the last two happening six weeks apart.
Most of the concerts are musical tributes but there’s also a comedy-based band and a psychic medium. Two are tributes to pop superstars who grew up in Connecticut, and many of the performers are from Connecticut.
Here is the concert schedule:
A Tribute to Herb Alpert and Sergio Mendes. Jan. 20 at 8 p.m., $35. Rob Zappulla and his orchestra play some of the greatest hits of two of the best trumpet-based instrumental pop acts of the
1960s. Some of those songs had vocals, too, so singers Atla DeChamplain and Leala Cyr are part of the act.
Patricia Griffin. Jan. 21 at 2 p.m. and Feb. 9 at 8 p.m., $37. The Waterbury-born psychic medium has two shows on the schedule, nearly three weeks apart. She brings audience members messages from departed loved ones.
LoVeSeXy Tribute 2 to the
Music of Prince. Jan. 26 at 8 p.m., $35. The creative use of capital letters and word-like digits in the band name is the first clue to LoVeSeXy’s allegiance to the artist formerly and forever known as Prince. The set list naturally includes numerous “Purple Rain” songs but also “Kiss,” “Raspberry Beret” and other purple-tinged classics.
Close to You: The Music of
the Carpenters. Jan. 27 at 8 p.m., $35. Richard and Karen Carpenter were born in New Haven (in 1946 and 1950 respectively), but were Californians by the time they had their first hit, a cover of The Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride,” in 1970. This is a biographical tribute scripted and sung by Lisa Rock, who is backed by a six-piece band.
Someday I’ll Fly: The John
Mayer Tribute. Feb. 2 at 8 p.m., $26. Mayer grew up in Fairfield County. Bill Calabrese and a band honor the “Your Body is a Wonderland” and “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” hitmaker.
Elton John Undressed
with Todd Alsup. Feb. 3 at 8 p.m., $35. New Yorkbased pianist/singer
Alsup developed his solo Elton John tribute with the help of TheaterWorks Hartford’s Rob Ruggiero, and the show had three sold-out performances at that theater in April 2022. Ruggiero is still credited as the director of this theatrical, lavishly costumed concert.
The Fabulous Acchords.
Feb. 4 at 2 p.m. $30. Their names are Tommy, Warren, Phil and Dennis, they wear shiny jackets and they specialize in doo-wopstyle harmonies, though some of their repertoire, like “Pennies from Heaven” and “Blue Moon,” predate the doo-wop era of “Morse Code of Love,” “Teardrops Are Falling,” etc.
A Tribute to Sinatra with the Harold Zinno, Jr. Orchestra with special
guest Walt Andrus. $39. Feb. 10 at 8 p.m. A popular Waterbury jazz orchestra performs with a seasoned Frank Sinatra tribute artist. Walt Andrus has performed throughout the country and can evoke both the young and older Sinatra styles. His father ran the long-defunct rock club/ restaurant the Poco Loco in downtown New Haven.
Coconuts. Feb. 17 at 8 p.m. $30. Billed as “The Boomer Humor Comedy Band,” Coconuts does parodies, rock covers, sing-alongs and a lot of fun banter.
Lee-Ann Lovelace. March 30 at 8 p.m. $30. The eclectic Waterbury-based singer/songwriter has been performing for 20 years and has recently issued a few recordings, including the blues-rock original “Dirty Water.”
The Lovelace show straddles the end of the Winter Concert Series and the beginning of the fourshow mainstage play/musical season.
Seven Angels’ 33rd theater season includes:
“Grumpy Old Men: The
Musical.” March 1-24,
$45. This musical based on the Walter Matthau/ Jack Lemmon film (which spawned two sequels) has music by Neil Berg, whose very different musical “The 12” premiered at the Goodspeed Opera House earlier this year and whose concert act has visited Hartford and Ridgefield. The lyrics are by the late longtime Mad Magazine editor Nick Meglin and the book is by Dan Remmes. The story concerns two neighbors growing old gracelessly by constantly revisiting ancient grudges. Their relationship gets even more complicated when they are both smitten with a new neighbor named Ariel.
“A Bronx Tale: The Musical.” April 26 through
May 19. $45. This is the musical version of Chazz Palminteri’s autobiographical coming-of-age drama about New York gangsters in the 1960s. Palmieri
has toured his original non-musical one-man show, which was also the basis of a 1993 movie. The musical has a book by Palminteri and music by the team of Alan Menken and Glenn Slater (who did the Broadway musicals “The Little Mermaid” and “Sister Act” together, as well as numerous TV and movie projects).
“JBKO.” June 14-30. $37. This is the world premiere of a new play about Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, written by Waterbury native Tom Santopietro, a theater historian and longtime manager for Broadway shows.
“Bye Bye Birdie.” July 19 through August 4. $32. Every summer, Seven Angels Theatre produces a “community production” which lets non-professionals or student performers be onstage with professionals in a large-cast show. This year it’s “Bye Bye Birdie,” the Broadway classic by Michael Stewart, Charles Strouse and Lee Adams about midwestern high school students affected by a promotional event surrounding a rock star’s induction into the Army. This is the show that introduced “Put on a Happy Face,” “A Lot of Livin’ to Do” and “Kids.”
Both the concert series and the theater series have discount deals. If you purchase tickets for three or more events in the Winter Concert Series, you get $3 off per ticket. A four-ticket “flex pass” for the theater shows is $136. The tickets can used in any configuration, for several different shows or for several seats at one show.
Seven Angels Theatre is at 1 Plank Road, Hamilton Park, Waterbury. More information on the concert series and theater season, go to sevenangelstheatre.org.