Benjamin Eakeley and his jazz band play an encore performance of his solo concert Broadway Swinger, Volume 2 on Tuesday, August 14 at 7:00 PM. The show chronicles the birth of swing music in the 1930s and the rise of the big bands that lifted American spirits out of the Great Depression. It features standards by Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Jerome Kern and other greats who established the 1930s as the Golden Age of American Songwriting.
Broadway Swinger, Volume 2 is co-written by Tim Murray (50 Shades: The Musical) and directed by JV Mercanti (59E59’s Songbird, Broadway’s Romeo and Juliet), with James Olmstead (conductor, Broadway’s On Your Feet!) serving as music director. Eakeley is accompanied by a four-piece jazz combo featuring piano, bass, drums and trumpet.
Benjamin Eakeley played Clifford Bradshaw in the recent Roundabout Theatre Company National Tour of Cabaret and has appeared on Broadway in the revivals of She Loves Me, Cabaret, Sweeney Todd and On a Clear Day, You Can See Forever. He has been seen in seven films, including The Good Shepherd and the upcoming The Unattainable Story. His television credits include “Orange Is the New Black,” “The Blacklist” and “The Good Wife.” In 2014, Time Out New York named him one of “The 10 Hottest Chorus Boys Opening In Broadway Musicals This Spring.” Eakeley has received a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Special Citation (Sweeney Todd) and an Astaire Award Nomination (She Loves Me). He was a national finalist in the Lotte Lenya Competition for Singers.
JV Mercanti (Director) is currently Associate Director of Musical Theater at Pace University’s School of the Arts. He most recently served as Associate Director of “Jesus Christ Superstar: Live” for NBC, starring John Legend and Sara Bareilles. Tim Murray (Co-writer) is an actor, writer and comedian. He originated a role in the Off-Broadway show 50 Shades the Musical and has also performed with the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Texas Shakespeare Festival, Wagon Wheel Theatre, Arts Center of Coastal Carolina and many other theaters across the country. His plays World Famous and The Connector had their world premieres at Theatre for the New City in NYC. He continues to perform stand-up at comedy clubs in Los Angeles.
Broadway Swinger, Volume 2, Tuesday, August 14 at 7:00 PM. Cover charges start at $35 with a $25 food and beverage minimum. Tickets are available HERE.
Feinstein’s/54 Below is located at 254 West 54th Street, NYC. www.54Below.com/Feinsteins
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