Theatre: Summer: The Donna Summer Musical (July 2018)

My spouse and I attended Summer: The Donna Summer Musical on a Sunday afternoon in late July 2018. We won tickets to the performance in the Broadway lottery, which allows you to purchase last-minute unsold seats (this time in the orchestra left section) for only a fraction of the cost of a regular seat ($40 versus $200).

Summer: The Donna Summer Musical is a musical based on her life, featuring music and lyrics written and sung by her and others. The musical opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in April 2018. She is often called the “Queen of Disco”. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Summer was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach No. 1 on the United States Billboard 200 chart and charted four number-one singles in the US within a 12-month period. Summer has reportedly sold over 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. She also charted two number-one singles on the R+B charts in the US and a number-one in the UK. Summer earned a total of 32 hit singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in her lifetime, with 14 of those reaching the top ten. She claimed a top 40 hit every year between 1975 and 1984.

Songs from the musical include I Feel Love, Love to Love You Baby, I Remember Yesterday, MacArthur Park, Heaven Knows, No More Tears (Enough Is Enough), On the Radio, I Love You, Bad Girls, She Works Hard for the Money, Dim All the Lights, Unconditional Love, Stamp Your Feet, Hot Stuff, Last Dance

LaDonna Adrian Gaines was a girl from Boston with a voice from heaven, who shot through the stars from gospel choir to dance floor diva. But what the world didn’t know was how Donna Summer risked it all to break through barriers, becoming the icon of an era and the inspiration for every music diva who followed. While influenced by the counterculture of the 1960s, Summer became the lead singer of a psychedelic rock band named Black Crow and moved to New York City. Joining a touring version of the musical Hair, she left New York and spent several years living, acting, and singing in Europe, where she met her first music producers.

Three actresses (including two Tony Award winners) play Donna Summer, taking us through her tumultuous life, tempestuous loves, and mega-watt musical hits. Spend the day in her electrifying universe!

Summer died on May 17, 2012, from lung cancer (attributed to 9-11 dust because she never smoked), at her home in Naples, Florida. In 2013, Summer was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In December 2016, Billboard ranked her as the 6th most successful dance artist of all-time.

Lunt-Fontanne Theatre

Opened in 1910, the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre was originally named The Globe, after Shakespeare’s theatre in England. It had a retractable roof to enable the theatre to stay cool and remain open during the summer. For nearly two decades, the theatre housed a variety of plays and musicals, until 1932 when it was turned into a movie house.

In 1958, the theatre was gutted and rebuilt in its present configuration as a legitimate theatre. It was renamed in honor of America’s foremost husband-wife acting couple, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, who starred in its first production “The Visit”. Theatregoers can enjoy a selection of photographs from their private collection on display throughout the lobby areas.

The Lunt-Fontanne currently has 1,505 seats and is one of The Nederlander Organization‘s nine Broadway theatres.