Quality Hill Playhouse serves up a roller coaster with ‘Broadway and Back’

The Quality Hill Playhouse production of “Broadway and Back” features a wealth of showstoppers and audience favorites, many of them having done double duty in film and on stage.

The show focuses on songs from movies that inspired — or were inspired by — Broadway (and in one case, off-Broadway) musicals. Some of those pedigrees get complicated: Mel Brooks’ 1968 movie, “The Producers,” inspired a wildly successful Broadway musical that opened in 2001 and, in turn, spawned a 2005 film.

Producing artistic director J. Kent Barnhart chose the songs with “an emotional roller coaster” in mind, rather than going in chronological order. Lindsey McKee’s rendition of “Summertime,” from “Porgy and Bess” is the kind of show-stopping number I’d expect near the end of the cabaret’s second act — but it’s the fifth song in the Act 1.

Two songs later, Ashley Pankow does a stirring version of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from “Evita,” followed by Vigthor Zophoniasson singing the beautiful, prayerful lament, “Bring Him Home” from “Les Miserables.”

McKee channels her inner Julie Andrews in a duet with Zophoniasson of “Something Good,” a song Rodgers and Hammerstein added to the film version of “The Sound of Music.” Her version of “Send in the Clowns” from “A Little Night Music” simply soars.

Pankow has a sweet, and sometimes saucy, ingenue quality perfect for the dreamy “Somewhere That’s Green” from “Little Shop of Horrors” and an adorably cute duet with Barnhart, “I Do Like You” from “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” the first musical for which Stephen Sondheim wrote both the lyrics and the music.

She exhibits her saucy side with “When You Got It, Flaunt It” from “The Producers” and “Gimme Gimme” from “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”

Zophoniasson, who hails from Iceland, handles operatic and musical theater pieces adeptly. He sings some of the surprises of the night, including (Barnhart usually manages to sneak in a few songs that may be unfamiliar to the audience): the poignant “Breeze off the River” from “The Full Monty” and “Larger Than Life” from “My Favorite Year,” a 1982 film that became a musical in 1992 and ran on Broadway for just a month.

Another is “Gethsemane,” a song full of anguish and doubt from “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

Zophoniasson and the British-born McKee share a humorous turn with “A Little Priest” from “Sweeney Todd.” He and Pankow join for the ubiquitous “All I Ask of You” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera.” Yes, it’s beautiful, but I’ve heard it too many times.

Barnhart makes up for that by including “This Place is Mine” from the other version of “Phantom of the Opera,” with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. McKee does a stunning turn as Madame Carlotta.

There’s a nod to all those Disney musicals with “Circle of Life” from “The Lion King” at the end of the first act. And Barnhart couldn’t forget Cole Porter; he and McKee team up for “True Love” from “High Society.”

Even the lighting for this show seems more dramatic than usual, and costume designer Georgianna Londre Buchanan sets an elegant tone for the show with the men in tuxes and the women in sparkling evening gowns.

The show opens with a rousing rendition of “There’s No Business Like Show Business” from Irving Berlin’s “Annie, Get Your Gun” and concludes with “Lullaby of Broadway” and the title tune from “42nd Street.”

This story was originally published March 13, 2015 at 10:17 PM with the headline "Quality Hill Playhouse serves up a roller coaster with ‘Broadway and Back’."