Jewel, Karen Olivo, John Tartaglia, et al. Set for NBC Broadcast of Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular

NBC's live broadcast of the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular will include performances by Grammy Award winner Rob Thomas, multi-platinum singer-songwriter Jewel, and Tony Award winner Karen Olivo and the cast of the Broadway revival of West Side Story. In addition, Shrek star John Tartaglia will be interviewed live by hosts Tiki Barber and Natalie Morales. The broadcast will air on July 4, 9-10pm EST.

For the first time since 2000, Macy's Fireworks will return to the Hudson River to honor the country's independence and to kick off the 400th anniversary of the exploration of the Hudson River by Henry Hudson on his ship, The Half Moon. This year's fireworks spectacular will feature more than 40,000 brilliant shells exploding over New York City at a rate of more than 1,500 shells per minute.

For more information, visit www.nbc.com.


http://www.theatermania.com/new-york/news/07-2009/jewel-karen-olivo-john-tartaglia-et-al-set-for-nbc_19937.html

I wonder what will happen to WSS on July 4th evening performance. Will their section be pre-recorded? I got matinee tickets for WSS that day so I'm a bit worried about missing Karen Olivo!!

West Side Story and Jewel were prerecorded on Thursday night.

Jewel sang her rendition of God Bless America and West Side Story sang America (when they say the cast of West Side Story, they really meant 7 cast members)

I would think it's pre recorded without the dancing. I believe that the song is going to be used as background music to the fireworks.

But, the question that I am wondering is this. If they have the cast album out of West Side story with Karen et al, then why would they spend the money to rerecord it when they can just use the new cast recording?

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How little prep do you have to do to get one of the major act's name wrong?

Hah, every song so far has been by Stephen Flaherty. Audra sounded beautiful as always. Idina sounds better than I've heard her in this song too.

Was the singing live cause they never showed the singers.

No, I think both songs were recorded. Otherwise I'm pretty sure they'd have shown Audra and Idina.

The Playbill.com article said that Idina and Audra and the Choir were prerecorded. The whole John Tartaglia thing was crap! He didn't say anything! It was just him smiling and waving.

I agree, I thought Idina sounded great. It was obvious though that it was pre-recorded.

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