The Manhattan Transfer, Del McCoury Band headline 2022-23 Hoover Library Theatre season
The Hoover Library Theatre today announced its 2022-23 season, which Fine Arts Director Matina Johnson said has at least three shows that really are “too big” for the 250-seat venue.
One is the Del McCoury Band, headlined by the two-time Grammy Award-winning bluegrass icon himself. A second is The Manhattan Transfer, which has won 10 Grammy Awards for pop and jazz, and the third is a “Santa’s Circus” production with stunts most people wouldn’t expect to see on a 17-foot-high stage, Johnson said.
The Del McCoury Band and The Manhattan Transfer both could easily fill much larger venues without blinking, Johnson said. McCoury has played to tens of thousands of people at a time and probably is one of the biggest acts to ever perform at the Hoover Library Theatre, she said.
“He’s right there with Ricky Skaggs — shoulder to shoulder,” Johnson said. “Getting him was really a coup.”
The Hoover Library Theatre welcomed McCoury’s sons as “The Travelin’ McCourys” in December 2012 but couldn’t score a visit from the father himself back then. But connections with past performers who had a good experience in Hoover were instrumental in getting Del McCoury to agree to come this year, Johnson said.
His sons will be performing with him in Hoover in November, “so we’re looking for a really wonderful show,” she said.
The Manhattan Transfer is on its 50th anniversary tour and final tour together, according to promoters.
“For them to have their final and 50th anniversary tour here in a 250-seat house — I’m very proud of that,” Johnson said. “We can’t wait to have them on stage. It will be the last time people get to see them and maybe the closest view to see their show on stage like this. I expect us to have a huge waiting list for most of these shows.”
The Santa’s Circus performance is filled with breathtaking stunts, but it also has a storyline woven through it, Johnson said.
“It’s a family show. We hope patrons bring their whole family to this show,” she said. “It’s for children just as much as it’s for adults.”
While the small Library Theatre stage has some challenges with a circus show, the theater does have trained riggers on staff and can handle it, Johnson said.
“We have done this before,” she said. “It’s not our first rodeo with it, but this is probably the biggest one we’ve ever had.”
The 2022-23 season also includes a gospel choir the library has been trying to get to Hoover ever since the choir performed at the royal wedding of England’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in May 2018, giving them worldwide fame.
Johnson was on the phone immediately afterward, trying to book The Kingdom Choir and successfully scheduled them for an April 2020 appearance in Hoover. But the COVID-19 pandemic roared its head, causing performances at the end of that season to be postponed.
Johnson rebooked The Kingdom Choir for 2021, but with the pandemic still lingering, the full tour never materialized, and scheduling problems prohibited the choir from coming in 2022, she said.
But now the choir finally is coming to Hoover in March 2023. The interesting thing is that a whopping 60% of people who in August 2019 bought tickets to the choir’s two Hoover shows have hung onto those tickets all this time, even though they were given a chance each year to get a refund if they wanted.
“We asked every year if they wanted to hold onto those tickets, and every year they said yes,” Johnson said.
So, 60% of the tickets to those two shows already are sold, she said.
Another show that had been slated to come to Hoover in the 2020-21 season (which was completely canceled due to COVID-19) was a flamenco show by the Flamenco Vivo company, founded by Carlota Santana.
That company was willing to reschedule in Hoover for the 2021-22 season, but it was putting on a shorter show, and Johnson wanted the full-length version. So, Flamenco Vivo was booked for April of 2023 with its longer show, now called “Fronteras.”
The Hoover Library Theatre doesn’t have a lot of dance performances because most dance performances require a lot of wing space where dancers have a place to land once they go off the side of the stage, and the Library Theatre doesn’t have a lot of wing space, Johnson said.
But this production will work, and “I think it’s going to be a very dramatic piece,” she said.
The 2022-23 season also includes two singer-songwriter acts that are up and coming in the U.S. market — Canadian country duo The Abrams and Miko Marks, whose music is a meld of country, blues, soul and roots artistry.
Rounding out the season are illusionist Vitaly Beckman and comedian Pat Hazell.
“We’re thrilled to be putting a full season on and feeling like it’s going to be back to a regular year,” Johnson said.
This past season didn’t start until October 2021, but the new season kicks in gear in September as in previous years. Also, one act earlier this year — David Phelps — was postponed from January to March for pandemic-related reasons. And while audience members may not have known, things were “touch and go” with some other performers this past season due to the pandemic, Johnson said. She’s hopeful those days are behind.
Tickets for the 2022-23 season are slated to go on sale Aug. 23 for returning season ticket holders and Aug. 25 for new people who want full-season tickets, Johnson said. Tickets for individual shows go on sale Aug. 26.
The cost is $32 per show, plus a $3 processing fee, for a total of $35 per show. The full season costs $315 (or $280 for those who already have tickets for The Kingdom Choir).
Here’s a fuller description of each act in the 2022-23 season, based on information provided by the Hoover Library Theatre and the acts’ websites:
THE ABRAMS
SEPT. 22-23, 7:30 P.M.
Hailing from Kingston, Ontario, brothers John and James Abrams became the youngest Canadians to perform at the Grand Ole Opry in 2005. They started performing together when John was 11 and James was 9.
They made their mark at many high-profile U.S. bluegrass festivals and toured across multiple continents while still in their teens and 20s.
Retired folk singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie, upon first seeing them perform, remarked "They’re way too young to be playing that good.”
The Abrams are fourth-generation songwriters and recording artists. They have been headliners and opened for other artists, including John Hammond, Feist, Dean Brody, The Dixie Chicks, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Luke Combs.
They won the 2022 award for Duo/Group of the Year at the CMA Ontario Awards.
VITALY BECKMAN
“AN EVENING OF WONDERS”
OCT. 20-21, 7:30 P.M.
Beckman, an illusionist, is perhaps best known for fooling the legendary Penn & Teller on their hit TV shot “Fool Us” not once, but twice.
His performance at The Library Theatre will be a “fabulous variety show,” Johnson said.
“It’s hard to describe. This is more illusion than magic,” she said. “He can make faces disappear from driver’s licenses. He can make paint brushes paint from thin air. It’s mind-blowing in a way. It’s artistic illusion, rather than just old-time magic. It’s very artistic.”
While Beckman invented and designed every illusion in his stage show, the show was produced off-Broadway by Daryl Roth, whose producing credits include Tony winners such as “Kinky Boots” and “Indecent.” Beckman was booked for a limited 16-week run at the prestigious Westside Theatre, where Penn & Teller started their careers in the 1980s.
He discovered his passion for magic when he was 14 and years later abandoned a career in engineering to focus on rebuilding people’s sense of wonder and bridging the gap between dreams and reality.
PAT HAZELL’S
“PERMANENT RECORD”
NOV. 3-4, 7:30 P.M.
Comedian Pat Hazell, who was a writer for the “Seinfeld” TV show, uncovers his own “Permanent Record” in a confessional show filled with humor, heart and humanity.
He talks about his early addiction to card tricks, his recent divorce and living happily ever after, and he opens a vault to his faults, saying that if you can’t laugh at yourself, you might as well laugh at him.
“It’s all about himself,” Johnson said. “He’s an incredible script writer.” While it’s a comedy show, “you might tear up at the end,” she said.
Hazell has performed on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “An Evening at the Improv,” and “The Comedy Lounge Podcast.” He also wrote an episode of “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” produced the “Bunk Bed Brothers” TV movie and “American Pie” TV series and had an acting role in several episodes of the “Friday Night Lights” TV show.
He performed at the Hoover Library Theatre in 2003 with “The Wonder Bread Years,” a one-man show filled with reflections of growing up as a kid in the 1960s.
DEL MCCOURY BAND
NOV. 13, 4 & 7:30 P.M.
Del McCoury was named Entertainer of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association nine times and has received nearly countless awards from the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America.
He was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry has two Grammys for best bluegrass album in 2005 and 2014 and has been nominated for Grammys 14 times.
McCoury got his start as a banjo player for Earl Scruggs and later joined Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in 1963. Monroe moved him from banjo to guitar and made him lead singer, catapulting his career.
He has headlined sold-out concerts at music festivals of all genres. Now, he’s touring with a band that includes his sons, Ronnie and Rob, with a willingness to stay alert to the latest sounds.
The Del McCoury Band has become a regular at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, and has curated and expanded the DelFest Music Festival, named after the father, in Cumberland, Maryland.
SANTA’S CIRCUS
DEC. 1-2, 7:30 P.M.
This holiday-themed circus production is decorated to capture the essence of the season and celebrate the wonder and joy of it with a story that includes lots of stunts, magic, illusions, comedy and unexpected twists and turns.
The 90-minute acrobatic fairy tale is filled with traditional Christmas characters, especially Santa and Mrs. Claus. It’s designed both for children and the “inner child” in everyone, promoters say.
The show was founded by producer Francisco Santos, who is the eighth generation of a family dedicated to the entertainment business and was the creator of The Vampire
Circus. Santos also worked with Cirque du Soleil as a co-creator of the “Varekai” show, which has been seen by more than 9 million people around the world.
THE MANHATTAN TRANSFER
JAN. 8, 4 & 7:30 P.M.
The Manhattan Transfer has won 10 Grammy Awards and was the first group ever to win Grammys in both the pop and jazz categories in the same year in 1981. The group received a dozen Grammy nominations for its “Vocalese” album, which is second in line behind Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” for the greatest number of Grammy nominations for an album in one year.
The jazz ensemble has released 19 singles and 29 albums, including a new album, “Fifty” in 2022.
The performance at the Hoover Library Theatre is part of the group’s 50th anniversary and final tour, promoters said.
The original group was made up of Tim Hauser, Laurel Masse, Janis Siegel and Alan Paul. In 1974, the group began performing regularly at cutting-edge cabaret venues throughout New York City and were the No. 1 live attraction in the city by the end of the year. In 1975, they starred in a weekly hourlong summer replacement variety show on CBS. After Masse was injured in a car accident in 1978, she was replaced by Cheryl Bentyne. Hauser died in 2014 and was replaced by Trist Curless.
MIKO MARKS
FEB. 23, 7:30 P.M.
Marks made her way to Music City in 2003 and earned accolades such as “Nashville’s Hottest New Country Star” by People Magazine and “Best New Country Artist” by New Music Weekly.
She won Country Album of the Year from the Independent Music Awards for “Freeway Bound” in 2006 and again for “It Feels Good” in 2008. She also won Country Song of the Year for “Freeway Bound” in 2007 and “It Feels Good” in 2008.
But despite playing the Country Music Association’s CMA Fest year after year, she never felt fully embraced by the country music industry.
After more than a decade without a new release, she came back with a new album in 2021, “Our Country,” which stretches outside a strict country box and includes blues, soul and roots music. She said she hopes the new album evokes a sense of urgency around systemic racism, injustice and economic disparity that she said plagues the underprivileged in the United States.
The lead single off her newest album was “We Are Here.”
THE KINGDOM CHOIR
MARCH 16-17, 7:30 P.M.
The Kingdom Choir, a gospel choir based in London, captured the world’s attention with their performance at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018, with 1.9 billion people watching on TV.
Their gospel version of “Stand By Me” went straight to the top of the Billboard charts, and they later released a full-length recording with Sony Music.
Founded in 1994 by award-winning conductor Karen Gibson, The Kingdom Choir draws from various Christian traditions and is dedicated to creating a sound that reflects warm energy and enthusiastic performances.
The choir in 2021 released the single “Together Again” as a reminder of what people have been through during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they now can reconnect and spend time with loved ones.
FLAMENCO VIVO
“FRONTERAS”
APRIL 20-21, 7:30 P.M.
The Flamenco Vivo company, co-founded by Carlota Santana in 1983, puts on a new evening-length piece called “Fronteras” about life and connectedness.
The company uses the art form to build bridges between the diverse influences of Gitano (Roma), Spanish, Judaic, Arabic and Latin American music and dance.
“Fronteras” was choreographed by Jose Maldonado and Karen Lugo and has an original score by Jose Luis de la Paz. The performance, while not directly about the pandemic, is designed to address the ripple effects and broader trends that are impacting global society, according to Dance Magazine.
The piece debuted at the Joyce Theater in New York City June 21-26.