A tuneful and friendly boo -- Stocker Arts Center presents Broadway Sessions: 'Broadway Frights and Delights'

A Halloween celebration that only Broadway could pull off. That's what the Stocker Center has planned with its next Broadway Sessions performance "Broadway Frights and Delights" taking place Sept. 27 in the Cirigliano Studio Theatre. "Erin Miller, who runs the Stocker Arts Center, has been wanting this for quite a while," Broadway Sessions coordinator and director Joanna May Cullinan said. "She thought it would be a really fun and kind of different theme for a concert to focus on Halloween-ish musicals. There are so many of them that a lot of us love and there are also so many that people don't know about. So, we're doing a Halloween-themed show, taking a deep dive into a lot of musicals that I'm super excited about it." The program includes songs from Broadway, Hollywood and the Great American Songbook. The list of favorites ranges from titles such as "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "The Addams Family" to "Jekyll & Hyde," "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" and "Beetlejuice." Considering the latter production just came through Northeast Ohio at Playhouse Square, Cullinan noted the Tony Award-winning show acted as a perfect appetizer for the upcoming Broadway Session program. "Horror-themed musicals are pretty dark and can be pretty obscure, but we want everybody to have fun with these concerts -- that's where the idea of 'Frights and Delights' came into place," she said. "We still want there to be songs that people are familiar with, but then we took a look at musicals that have ghost characters in them or musicals that are about candy and other aspects of Halloween. That way we can make a kind of a combination of the scary and the whimsical." Cullinan noted that going forward, the Halloween show could become an annual tradition. Over the last two years, Broadway Session productions have provided audiences an intimate concert experience featuring top-notch vocalists and live musicians. The upcoming show includes cast members Dayshawnda Ash, Trey Gilpin, Natalie Green, Grant Guyton, Cameron Olin and Connor Stout. "The one thing that we hear over and over again is people cannot believe the level of talent on stage," she said. "And when they find out that they're all local, people are amazed, surprised, delighted. "That's been the most rewarding, to just showcase local talent in a way that people had no idea how good Cleveland singers and actors really are." Considering "Broadway Frights and Delights" is Halloween-themed, and "Sweeney Todd" will be represented, does that mean theatergoers should expect a bloody affair? "There will be no blood on stage," she laughed. "We're not doing any special effects, but there might be some cute little Halloween bits and pieces." Contact John Benson at ndiffrence@att.net.