The 2022 Curtain Up Broadway Festival has announced additional guests for its blockbuster events in Times Square September 30–October 2, including The Broadway Block Party, Curtain Up! After Dark, and Curtain Up! LIVE from Broadway.
Presented by Playbill, The Broadway League, and the Times Square Alliance, and sponsored by Prudential Financial, the free festival features performances, sing-alongs, a block party, and more culminating in the Curtain Up! Finale Concert hosted by Amber Ruffin and Jesse Tyler Ferguson.
Put on your dancing shoes to join Broadway DJ Mike Borowski and guest performers Christine Dwyer (Wicked), Matt DeAngelis (Waitress), Apollo Levine (MJ), Tracee Beazer(Frozen), Raymond J Lee (Groundhog Day), Lee Siegel (Paradise Square), and more for The Broadway Block Party. Fans are invited to dance and sing to classic and contemporary Broadway songs September 30 at 5 PM in Duffy Square. More guest stars will be announced at a later date.
At 6:30 PM that same evening will be Broadway Sings: The Golden Age of Broadway, the first of the Curtain Up! After Dark concerts sponsored by Prudential. The concert will feature the Broadway Sings Band and Broadway performers T. Oliver Reid, Conrad Ricamora (The King and I), Jessica Keenan Wynn (Beautiful), Morgan James (Motown the Musical), Jeanna de Waal (Diana), Corey Mach (Kinky Boots), MK Morrissey (Mean Girls), and Allison Semmes (Motown), plus band members Kartes, Colin Dean, Hiroyuki Matsuura, Yayoi Ikawa, Clyde Daley, Matthew Jermiason, and Noah Vece.
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The second Curtain Up! After Dark event, titled Rockers on Broadway: Live in Times Square and Benefiting The PATH Fund, will be held October October 1 at 6:30 PM with Donnie Kehr and his band, alongside guests Rob Evan (Jekyll & Hyde), N’Kenge (Caroline, or Change), Michael Longoria (Jersey Boys), Jen Perry (Kinky Boots), Lauren Pritchard (Spring Awakening), Max Sangerman (Smokey Joe’s Café), Bligh Voth (The Band’s Visit), Jeremy Schonfeld, Sam Behr, and more. Featuring a mix of Broadway and contemporary rock ‘n’ roll hits, audience will be able to donate to the PATH Fund via mobile devices.
The festival will close with a star-studded performance October 2 at 11 AM in Duffy Square. Amber Ruffin (Some Like It Hot) and Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Take Me Out) will host this year's free outdoor Curtain Up! Finale Concert, with performances and special appearances from the casts of A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Strange Loop, Aladdin, & Juliet, Beetlejuice, Chicago, Death of a Salesman, Funny Girl, Hadestown, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Into the Woods, The Lion King, MJ The Musical, Moulin Rouge! The Musical, The Music Man, The Phantom of the Opera, Six, and Wicked.
Sammi Cannold (Evita) will direct the closing concert, joined by Daryl Waters (The Cher Show) as the event's musical director with live music provided by The Music Performance Trust Fund. WABC will broadcast the concert live with direction for telecast by Michael J Moritz, Jr.
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Additional events for the weekend will include Sing-Along performances of Chicago, Wicked, Little Shop of Horrors, and Kinky Boots; an Ailey's Revelations dance workshop; multiple presentations of Belt It Out On Broadway Dueling Pianos Presented by Prudential; Playbill: The Game Show LIVE!; Audible Theater Concert; One Night Only: A Benefit Concert for The Entertainment Community Fund; and Sing for Hope Piano Concerts and Free Play, both occurring every day of the festival. Performers will include pianists Paul Losel, Michael McAssey, Mark Hartman, Drew Wutke, Rachel Kaufman (Speakeasy Magik), Steven Jamail (Born For This), Kevin Winebold, Julia Murney (Wicked), Nic Rouleau (The Book of Mormon), and Shereen Pimentel (West Side Story), and Christopher Sieber (Company).
A collaboration between Playbill, The Broadway League, and the Times Square Alliance, Curtain Up Broadway Festival is sponsored by Prudential Financial, and is sponsored in part by Wagoneer and Audible Theater, with additional support from the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, Hotel Edison, and The Music Performance Trust Fund.
Visit Playbill.com/CurtainUp for a full schedule.
Take a look at the 2021 Curtain Up Festival:
