Frank Wildhorn’s “For the Glory: The Civil War Musical” opens at Kelsey Theater on Friday, February 9, to celebrate Black History Month. A musical production that fuses techniques from rock music, concert performance, oratorios, and song-cycles, inspiration for the show comes from Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, as well as from the letters, photos, and journals of actual Civil War era figures including slaves, Union and Confederate soldiers, and abolitionists. The play, directed by former Plainsboro resident Frank Ferrara, plays weekends through Sunday, February 18. There is an opening night reception in the lobby after the first performance.##M:[more]##
“For the Glory” opened on Broadway as “The Civil War” and was nominated for two 1999 Tony Awards: best new musical and best score. Wildhorn, also the creator of Broadway’s “Jekyll and Hyde” and “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” produced a concept album called “The Civil War: The Complete Work,” which featured Hootie and the Blowfish, Blues Traveler, Travis Tritt, Dr. John, and Betty Buckley. In 2006 a new version of the show was presented at the Majestic Theater in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and is now making its way to Kelsey Theater for its first opening in this region.
Timothy Walton of Plainsboro portrays a slave named Benjamin. “This piece is a good overview of history, but not what’s in the text books,” he says. “It shows you the personal impact of the people living during the Civil War, including a mother who lost five sons, a young man trying to be brave for his father, and a group of people who want to live a better life.”
Walton was born in Jersey City, and raised in Somerset. His mother was an opera singer and taught vocal music in Jersey City Public Schools for 36 years, and his father was an organist and owned a dry cleaning business in Jersey City.
A graduate of the College of New Jersey, Class of 2001, he received a master’s degree in vocal performance from New England Conservatory in 2003. Walton, who moved to Plainsboro a year ago, is on the voice faculty in Franklin Township public schools.
He began performing as a young child in his mother’s choir when he sang the solo to “O Holy Night.” When he was in third grade he was with the Jersey City State College Choir and Orchestra when they performed the “23 Psalms in Hebrew” and he sang the boy soprano role.
At TCNJ, he was a part of opera theater where he played Tommy in “Brigadoon,” and Peachum in “The Threepenny Opera,” Beadle Banford in “Sweeney Todd,” and Eisenstein in “De Fledermaus.” At Off Broad-Street Theater he was featured in “Hot ‘n Cole” and “The It Girl.” He recently performed on “Comedy Central” as a part of the Night of Too Many Stars Benefit.
“Hope, love and peace…seems like we are still looking for those things today some hundreds of years later,” says Walton. “What better way to show it than singing Wildhorn’s epic music and during a month when we reflect on our nation’s history.” — Lynn Miller
For the Glory: The Civil War Musical, Kelsey Theater, Mercer County Community College, 1200 Old Trenton Road, 609-584-9444. Cheng/Ferrara production of Frank Wildhorn’s musical. $16. Friday, February 9, through Sunday, February 18
