The performers who devised it in 1999 are back onstage in Our Sinatra, A Musical Celebration. Eric Comstock, Christopher Gines and Hilary Kole are now playing a 25th anniversary engagement Off-Broadway at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater, through November 29.
The revue started small. The trio conceived it and first performed it at the Algonquin’s Oak Room in 1999, before producer Jack Lewin moved it into a commercial Off-Broadway run at the Blue Angel Theatre, where it won the MAC Award for Best Musical in 2000. It transferred to the Reprise Room that August and stayed until July 28, 2002, by which point the two houses had given it 1,096 performances between them. Two national tours and a long list of regional engagements followed, and the show still turns up every year in nightclubs and theaters. This revival is its first full-scale return to New York since the original run.
The evening is built on the songbook rather than on impersonation. Nearly 60 of Sinatra’s hits trace his career from the ballads of the 1940s, through the saloon and torch songs of the 1950s, to the swing of the 1960s — among them Fly Me to the Moon, The Way You Look Tonight, Come Fly with Me, The Best Is Yet To Come, Come Rain or Come Shine, I’ve Got You Under My Skin, Where or When, Day In – Day Out, One For My Baby and The Lady Is a Tramp.
Comstock, Gines and Kole are credited as the show’s creators. Tony Award winner Richard Maltby, Jr. supervises the production, Kurt Stamm directs, and Lewin produces for Lewin Productions. Visceral Entertainment is general manager, Ian McQueen is production stage manager and Peter F. Feuchtwanger is production supervisor. The piano is by Steinway & Sons.
The run shares its theater with another Lewin revue, Going Bacharach, whose encore engagement also plays through November 29.
The Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater is at 10 West 64th Street. Performances are Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 5 p.m. and Sunday at 1:30 p.m. Tickets are $69–$99, with premium seats at $129 and VIP packages from $159, on the Our Sinatra tickets page.
