Matthew Morrison fills Annenberg concert-goers with 'glee' at sold out benefit

Bruce Fessier
Palm Springs Desert Sun
Matthew Morrison sings during the Opening Night Benefit for the Annenberg Theater Saturday at the Palm Springs Art Museum.

The Annenberg Theater Council of the Palm Springs Art Museum kicked off its 2017-‘18 concert season Saturday with a perfect show for its series, and these times.

Matthew Morrison, star of such Broadway musicals as “Footloose” and “Hairspray,” but best known for his role in the television show, “Glee,” which built interest in show tunes, dynamically illustrated the ATC concert season theme: “Broadway's Best - In The West!”

ATC Chairman Tom Truhe introduced himself by saying, “Hi, I’m Tom and I’m a Broadway-holic,” and the audience responded, without missing a beat, “Hi Tom!” So it was a full house of people addicted to show tunes, including such Broadway stalwarts as Lucie Arnaz and writer-director David Zipple.

Morrison brought a superb band, led by Brad Ellis – the "piano guy” on “Glee" – capable of playing anything from rock to opera. Their focus was sophisticated jazz, so they opened with the 1931 Duke Ellington classic, “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)," featuring lyrics that launched an era by Irving Mills, who died at Desert Regional Medical Center in 1985. Morrison and his band made the song swing lightly and precisely, as it was performed in the Broadway production, “Sophisticated Ladies.”

Morrison then sang “The Lady Is A Tramp,” from the Rodgers and Hart musical “Babes In Arms,” ad libbing the lyric, “She refuses to believe Carol Channing is a friend of mine.” That pertained to the recent announcement that the Coachella Valley Repertory is planning to name its new theater in Cathedral City the Carol Channing Playhouse. CVRep board president Joe Giarrusso, vice president Sid Craig and chairman emeritus Gary Hall were all in the audience, probably humming along.

MORE: Plans to name theater after Carol Channing in motion

Morrison gave the song the Frank Sinatra treatment, singing around the beat and making up lyrics as he went. He later admitted he had done his homework about Palm Springs, but he was feeling the Sinatra spirit at the Annenberg, where Sinatra was once honored for his film contributions. At the dinner upstairs in the museum galleries after the show, Morrison said he plans to visit Sinatra’s grave in Cathedral City while staying in the valley long enough to let his wife, an interior designer, shop in Palm Springs.

Matthew Morrison broke out an umbrella to sing the movie show tune, “Singing In the Rain.” He said singer-dancer Gene Kelly was one of his idols.

“My wife has never been to downtown Palm Springs,” he said. “We’ve been to La Quinta and surrounding areas. This is special to be here. Such a great, thriving downtown.”

Morrison, 39, said he saw “Miss Saigon” when he was 10 and realized he wanted to do theatre for the rest of his life. He made his Broadway debut in “Footloose,” which closed in 2000, and starred in the 2002 Broadway production of “Hairspray.” He earned a Tony nomination for his performance in “The Light in the Piazza,” for which he had to learn to sing operatic-style and speak in Italian. He sang numbers from all three of those shows.

But a highlight was his thoughtful, slowly-paced rendition of “As Long As He Needs Me” from the musical, “Oliver.” The tune is sung in that Dickens-era show by Nancy after she’s been beaten by her lover, Bill Sykes. Morrison turned it into “As Long As She Needs Me” and, in this new age of awareness of sexual abuse, the lyrics took on new poignancy with his dramatic interpretation of, “I won't betray his trust/ Though people say I must/ I've got to stay true, just/ As long as he needs me.”

Later in the concert, he introduced a short medley from “Finding Neverland,” pausing for just a long enough beat to show he was hesitant to tell a story about Harvey Weinstein. But Weinstein produced the Broadway musical and Morrison won two Drama Desk awards and an audience award from Broadway.com as its star. So he said he got the part after Weinstein called him and said, “Come up to my hotel room. I want to show you something.”

Matthew Morrison sings during the Opening Night Benefit for the Annenberg Theater Saturday at the Palm Springs Art Museum.

Morrison showed his sensitivity to this era and Palm Springs with many song selections. He doesn’t usually perform Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “We Kiss In A Shadow,” from “The King and I,” in his concerts, he said, but he thought it was appropriate for Palm Springs. Sinatra recorded it before the musical even debuted on Broadway in 1951. It was sung in the show by a Burmese scholar and a slave from Burma, but Oscar Hammerstein II related to it as a gay man, writing the lyrics, “We speak in a whisper/ Afraid to be heard/ When people are near/ We speak not a word.”

Morrison joked that he sang “South Pacific” at Lincoln Center without a shirt on, and he was tempted to go topless for this performance, but, “In New York, it’s art. In Palm Springs, it’s just another night at Toucans.”

He then dramatically sang another song from “South Pacific” about intolerance: “You’ve Got To Be Taught,” with the lyrics, “You've got to be taught before it's too late/ Before you are six or seven or eight/ To hate all the people your relatives hate/ You've got to be carefully taught.” He segued from that into the majestic “Some Enchanted Evening.”

The evening was a success in many respects. It raised $235,000 from ticket sales and sponsorships for the Palm Springs Art Museum general budget, and patrons bought naming rights for seven more seats in the 420-seat Annenberg Theater to raise funds for theater improvements.

Major sponsors included Annette Bloch, widow of an H&R Bloch co-founder, paying for all the expenses associated with musical performances. Truhe said she’s been a $30,000-a-year diamond sponsor for five straight years. ATC Vice Chair Terri Ketover said she’s contributed $200,000 over the past decade.

Gold Sponsors, representing donations of $25,000, came from Arlene Schnitzer and Jordan Schnitzer, who are letting the museum exhibit their extensive collection of Andy Warhol prints March 3-May 28, and are guest of honor at the museum’s “Enter the World of Warhol” benefit gala Jan. 27 at the Palm Springs Convention Center.

MORE: Artists council hands out awards

Sponsorships of $15,000 came from board chairwoman Donna MacMillan and vice-chairman Harold Matzner. Eleven other gifts of $10,000 and $5,000 also contributed to the Best of Broadway and Cabaret 88 series budgets of $134,000 and $102,000 respectively. The Annenberg's annual operating budget is $620,000, counting expenses from lectures, films and rentals by groups such as Coyote Stageworks.

Matthew Morrison sings during the Opening Night Benefit for the Annenberg Theater Saturday at the Palm Springs Art Museum.

The Take Your Seat naming campaign was stimulated last year by the purchase of 11 seats at $1,000 each by Barry Manilow and his husband, Garry Kief, president and CEO of Stiletto Entertainment Group. They bought seats for their family members in Row M.

The ATC has now sold 175 of the 400 seats available for naming, not counting the last row where the names aren’t easily viewable. John Monahan, owner of The 500 building in Palm Springs, is covering the costs of the seat-naming campaign, Ketover said, so all donations will go directly to theater improvements, such as lighting and a new projector.

Contributions to the Take Your Seat campaign may be made by going to psmuseum.org/annenberg-theater/tys. The Best of Broadway series continues Jan. 20 with Jim Caruso’s “Cast Party,” featuring music director Billy Stritch, and runs through April 14 with a performance by Jennifer Holliday.