www.townhalltheatre.com<\/a>. The theater is located at 3535 School St. (at the corner of Moraga Road) in Lafayette, 94549.<\/p>\nI would imagine that if you enjoyed music by performers in the 60s and 70s as I did, then you would probably enjoy Summer, The Donna Summer Musical, as much as I did. It is similar to the musical \u201cJersey Boys\u201d, in that both shows tell a little bit of the history of how the entertainers came together, and shared their conflicts and successes brought on by their rapid growth in the music business. But both shows primarily showcase their wonderful music.<\/p>\n
The Donna Summer story is about a young woman who was not that much different than many other talented young people who became successful during that time in the music industry. She was born LaDonna Adrian Gaines in Boston in 1948, sang in her church chorus, and dropped out of high school hoping to break out of her lackluster and painful early life experiences. She cut school, even escaping all the way down the \u201cpike\u201d to New York City, which eventually provided an opportunity for her being cast in her first musical, \u201cHair\u201d. For that show, she worked hard and became fluent in German in order to jump on an opportunity that would take her to Germany with the German version of \u201cHair\u201d. While there she met and married Helmuth Sommer, later assuming as part of her stage name, her German husband\u2019s surname of Sommer. She subsequently changed it slightly to read \u201cSummer,\u201d intending to dramatize her musical persona as \u201cHot like Summer\u201d. She had become more in control of her own life through singing and sharing her superbly unique and beautiful voice with the world.<\/p>\n
While this San Francisco Broadway SF production concentrates primarily on sharing with the audience a strong selection of her beloved music, the story-telling may under-serve much of the great work done by her famous producers. Yet it is still a heartwarming, upbeat and rewarding evening of song and beautifully choreographed dancing. What is truly unique in this production is that the dancing ensemble consists almost entirely of women, who are outstanding dancers. Some of her great hits such as \u201cLove to Love You Baby\u201d, \u201cI Remember Yesterday\u201d, \u201cMacArthur Park\u201d, \u201cNo More Tears (Enough is Enough)\u201d, \u201cOn The Radio\u201d, \u201cBad Girls\u201d, \u201cShe Works Hard For The Money\u201d, and \u201cLast Dance\u201d, are so cherished by the audience, that it is almost impossible not to sing along throughout the production.<\/p>\n
The story is brilliantly told through the different stages of Summer\u2019s life by embracing three different Donna Summers; the Duckling Donna by Olivia Elease Hardy, the Disco Donna by Alex Hairston, and the Diva Donna by Dan\u2019yelle Williamson.<\/p>\n
Summer, The Donna Summer Musical, continues in the Golden Gate Theater, located at number 1 Taylor St., at the corner of Golden Gate Ave. in San Francisco. It is located approximately two & \u00bd blocks from the 19th St. BART station. Tickets range in price between $56 and $256 each, but are subject to change. The performances are on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 pm, with Friday and Saturday performances at 8 pm, along with Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 pm. There will be no performances on December 24th or 25th, but there will be added performances on Monday, December 23rd at 7:30 pm, Thursday, December 26th at 2 pm and on Sunday, December 29th, at 7:30 pm. Additional information may be found on the internet at: TheDonnaSummerMusical.com, or If you love the incredible music of this very talented woman, then by all means go and re-live the excitement of Donna Summer\u2019s music!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By CHARLIE JARRETT Martinez News-Gazette Columnist Once again, I\u2019m excited to share with you my reviews of two totally different but completely satisfying theater productions … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[66],"tags":[145,5,1009],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/martinezgazette.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Cinderella-production-3-002-sized.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Ntvs-2P2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinezgazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10852"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinezgazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinezgazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinezgazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinezgazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10852"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/martinezgazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10854,"href":"https:\/\/martinezgazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10852\/revisions\/10854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinezgazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinezgazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinezgazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinezgazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Henry](\"https:\/\/martinezgazette.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Cinderella-production-3-002-sized.jpg\" "\\"Henry")
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