Roger Miller's "Big River" - New York City Article

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Wednesday (February 8) through Monday (February 12)

In 1985, the Tony Award for best musical went to a show that combined innovative story-telling with an innovative score. The words and music to “Big River,” by the short-lived Texas troubadour Roger Miller (otherwise best known for “King of the Road,” “Dang Me,” “England Swings” and other pop classics), brilliantly combined country music style with traditional show tune narrative – in a way that parallels the fashion in which “Hair” had created theater music out of the vocabulary of rock ‘n’ roll 15 years earlier. In an era when Broadway was dominated by the cheap thrills of Franglais phantoms and belting shlock-opera Victor Hugos, “Big River” was also a warm and welcome burst of Americana, and the score today is as tuneful and memorable as it ever was. City Center Encores!, which presents semi-staged (and semi-concert) versions of worthwhile shows, with full orchestra and choreography, is famous for getting nearly everything right, and this promises to be the “Big River” production that we’ve all been waiting for.

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