Never before had WTTW-Ch. 11 gathered together 29 performers, 51 orchestra players, 45 broadcast engineers, 30 producers, 10 cameras and the entire support crew of the Chicago Theatre for a single TV special.
By the time taping of ”A Grand Night” ended in the wee hours of Jan. 22, roughly 350 meals, 100 trips to the airport and 80 international flights had been completed.
”It was a nearly incalculable organization job,” says Patterson Denny, WTTW`s vice president for program production, describing the logistics involved in the special, to be broadcast at 7 p.m. Sunday. ”We`ve done a lot of musical-performance shows before, but for sheer spectacle, this was a first.”
You would never know it, judging by how smoothly the 2 1/2-hour program unfolds and how strongly its unusually diverse cast performs. Taped at the Chicago Theatre from about 7:30 p.m. Jan. 21 to 2 a.m. the next morning, the evening is a show-business marathon, subtitled ”The Performing Arts Salute Public Television.”
A range of performers turned up for the show, which will be interrupted with pledge-night appeals for contributions. PBS apparently is banking that viewers will be moved by the show`s uniqueness.
”We wanted to do more than just offer a lineup of fine performers,”
says Denny, who worked with the program`s executive producer, Glenn DuBose.
”We wanted to show the rest of the country how lively the arts in Chicago are, and we thought the best way to do it would be to bring local performers- and national ones-into a magnificent theater such as the Chicago.
”In previous years, these fund-raisers have been taped mostly in New York and elsewhere on the East Coast. PBS decided it was time to open up the proceedings.”
Little wonder, then, that WTTW engaged Richard Thomas as the evening`s primary host: His unpretentious delivery seems to epitomize the national perception of down-to-earth Midwestern charm.
More important, though, are the local artists who have been given national exposure through the program. Among them, the Hubbard Street Dance Company`s Claire Bataille and Ron De Jesus partner eloquently in ”Georgia”; Chicago Symphony principal horn player Dale Clevenger turns in a persuasive reading of the finale of Mozart`s Horn Concerto No. 4; and Daniel Duell and Christine Dorian of Ballet Chicago are snappy in the somewhat trivial
”Andaluza.”
Among a genuinely grand list of performers, other standouts include bass Samuel Ramey, in full vocal splendor with excerpts from Verdi`s ”Attila”
and, more intimately, Stephen Sondheim`s ”Send in the Clowns”; tenor Jerry Hadley with soprano Hei-Kyung Hong in scenes from Puccini`s ”La Boheme”;
Michael Feinstein, the `80s answer to Ethel Merman, belting out American classics; and the punk-garbed but classically trained Kronos String Quartet with their signature twist on Jimi Hendrix`s ”Purple Haze.”
Granted, the show`s variety is so great that there`s probably a little something here to annoy everyone, but the gems shine brightly.
”It was our big chance to toot our own horn,” says Denny, with a bit of civic pride, ”and we hope the effort shows.”
