The next time Lea Salonga comes into town, for any reason, somebody really needs to drag her into a room, offer her an obscene amount of monet, and not let her depart until she agrees to topline a new production of her choice somewhere on a southland stage. Ahmanson, Pantages, Pasadena Playhouse, La Mirada…take your pick. GYPSY would seem to be the most obvious vehicle. I’d take another SWEENEY TODD, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, even a turkey like MAME. Give this lady a stage for a full evening, six nights a week including two on Sundauy
I realize I am repeating myself here. In this very same space, considering Stephen Sondheim’s OLD FRIENDS, I spewed much the same gush-miration upon the Tony winner based on work sharing the stage – and largely eclipsing – Bernadette Peters, Gavin Lee, and Beth Leavell. “SWEENEY TODD and GYPSY have both enjoyed recent Broadway revivals,” I wrote, “but someone needs to get this lady into both of these musicals.
With apologies to “Impossible Dream” composers Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion, this is my quest.
Salonga was here again, this time with some new (and not at all old) musical theater friends for the opening night of the 2026 season at Hollywood Bowl in a program titled Best of Broadway. Every inch a musical theater geek’s night to remember, the evening featured sky-dazzling fireworks, quips from host Billy Crystal, the rigor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra conducted by Thomas Wilkins, a chorus of wonderful singer-dancers and an eye-popping featured performer lineup that included Halle Bailey, Darren Criss, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Renee Elise Goldsberry…
…and the aforementioned Lea Salonga, who carried the heaviest performance load – solos and duets – blasting out hits from her performance past and, one very much hopes, from her future as well. A MAMMA MIA medley, “Defying Gravity,” “I’d Give My Life for You” “Suddenly Seymour” and “Send in the Clowns”…That’s not just a sampling. From Salonga, it’s a three-course banquet.
Salonga and Stokes – the evening’s other blow-you-away artist – had plenty of mutual admiration vibes working there. Cast your vote for the endeavor on which those two could go partner. SWEENEY TODD again, anyone? For Stokes, it’s been nearly 25 years since his run at the Kennedy Center’s Sondheim Celebration while Salonga cooked up her “worst pies in London” in a production in the Philippines in 2019.
But back to the Bowl. The two-act, two-hour program balanced a mixture of golden age fare (WESTSIDE STORY and ANNIE GET YOUR GUN) with a lot of late 20th century numbers. A little Sondheim, a little Schwartz, some Larson, some Menken, some Lloyd Webber, the LES MIZ/MISS SAIGON duo and, for good measure a jolt of Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Smartly, the programmers geared the selections to songs for which the featured performers were already well-known. Even in very lethal heels instead of a tail, the screen LITTLE MERMAID Bailey’s shimmering rendition of “Part of Your World” showcased her vocal prowess. Baileyother number, equally stirring, was “Home” from THE WIZ. Goldberry revisited the rabbit-quick lyrics coupled with the emotional turmoil of Angelica Schuyler’s “Satisfied” from HAMILTON and a RENT medley.
In addition to kicking things off with “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” Stokes revisited two of his past triumphs: Coalhouse Walker’s anthem of hope “Wheels of a Dream” from RAGTIME and MAN OF LA MANCHA’S “The Impossible Dream,” unleashing the baritone that could propel 1,000 dreams – wheeled, attainable or otherwise.
The Bowl’s newly-christened John Williams Stage is a long way from the Great White Way, but with the 2026 Tony Awards not so far in theater-lovers’ rear-view mirror, the best revival-winning RAGTIME (scheduled to tour in 2027) got a shoutout through Stokes’s “Wheels.” And with touring productions of MAMMA MIA and THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA returning to the Ahmanson and the Hollywood Pantages respectively in June, Salonga’s ABBA medley and Criss’s coffee-house version of “The Music of the Night” probably served to whet a few appetites for those long-running favorites.
Whether clad in ballet tights, Runyon-town gambling fineryor whatever that crazy Ascot-steampunk mashup was for “Put on Your Sunday Best,” Spencer Liff’s chorus of dancers gave the evening plenty of visual razzle-dazzle throughout. The soloists occasionally joined full-chorus numbers (or vice-versa), but when you have voices like Goldsberry and Bailey’s, you kind of want to drink them in without distraction.
The event boosted some much-deserved awareness and funds for the L.A. Philharmonic’s learning and community programs, including the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) a few members of which joined the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. With a nod toward building the next generation of Broadway talent, we heard from Lucy Acũna, winner of the “Broadway at the Bowl Spotlight Competition” performing “On My Own.” It will probably not be the last time we hear from this singer.
All in all, a beautiful, magical evening under the stars. With no staged production planned for this summer season, the Bowl gave the 12,000 in attendance an evening to savor.
I’ll end this recap as I began it – with Lea Salonga. Two songs in, after her plaintive and lovely rendition of NIGHT MUSIC’S “Send in the Clowns” (as unassuming and heartbreaking an 11 o’clock number as you’ll find), I worried whether the evening – or this performer – could top herself. Well, of course she could. Anybody who can get an audience clapping and singing along to “Take a Chance on Me” and roaring their approval over Elphaba’s “Defying Gravity” (to say nothing of revisiting “I Would Give my Life For You,” a song she first sang as a teen-ager) is a musical theater nova, pure and simple. What say, L.A., give her the stage again!
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