RIP to Marvin Laird, RUTHLESS! composer and longtime music director for Bernadette Peters
RIP to Marvin Laird, RUTHLESS! composer and longtime music director for Bernadette Peters
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Broadway Legend Joined: 9/20/18
#1RIP to Marvin Laird, RUTHLESS! composer and longtime music director for Bernadette Peters
Posted: 12/4/24 at 4:20pm
In addition to composing RUTHLESS! (written with his husband, Joel Paley), his credits include dance arrangements for GEORGY, THE HAPPY TIME, and the film of HELLO DOLLY, music direction & dance arrangements for Bernadette’s revivals of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN and GYPSY, and a few shows that didn’t last more than 2 performances (OH BROTHER, BROADWAY FOLLIES, ONE NIGHT STAND, and the infamous BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’s). He also music-directed for Cher, Liza, Shirley MacLaine, and other great divas, in addition to his decades-long work with Peters.
More recently, he was an associate conductor/keyboardist on Bernadette’s engagements in DOLLY and GYPSY.
https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Broadway-and-Film-Composer-and-Conductor-Marvin-Laird-Passes-Away-at-85-20241204
#2RIP to Marvin Laird, RUTHLESS! composer and longtime music director for Bernadette Peters
Posted: 12/5/24 at 9:45am
RIP! If I recall he met Bernadette while she was an understudy in the 2nd National tour of Gypsy. I have always enjoyed the pair on stage and I wondered recently why he hadn’t been at some of Bernadette’s major events.
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
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