It will be a helluva town for two nights next year at Carnegie Hall, when the Orchestra of St. Luke’s presents concert performances of the 1944 Broadway musical On the Town.

The famed orchestra, as previously reported, is launching its new five-year initiative of presenting classic American musicals in concert. The first concert will be with the Leonard Bernstein-Betty Comden-Adolph Green musical. Performances are scheduled for 7 PM January 11-12, 2027, at the famed Manhattan venue.

Tony winner Shuler Hensley (Oklahoma!) will direct the concerts, which will be led by music director Rob Berman. Chase Brock will choreograph.

The Broadway-filled company will feature Corbin Bleu, Jin Ha, and Colton Ryan as, respectively, Ozzie, Chip, and Gabey, the three sailors on shore leave in New York. Their love interests will be played by Emma Crow as Ivy Smith, Megan Hilty as Hildy Esterhazy, and Isabel Leonard as Claire de Loone. Tony winner Paulo Szot will play Judge Pitkin W. Bridgework. Additional casting will be announced at a later date.

Bleu is currently playing Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby after being nominated for an Olivier Award for his West End debut in the same role; Ha, recently seen in the revival of Proof, will be part of the City Center Encores! engagement of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown; Ryan received a Tony nomination for his leading role in 2023’s New York, New York; Crow, the 2016 overall gold medalist in the World Ballet Competition, made her Broadway debut in 2022’s The Music Man; Hilty, Tony-nominated for her work in Death Becomes Her, will return to Broadway in the limited run of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play; three-time Grammy winner Leonard will also star as Julie in Houston Grand Opera’s Show Boat in spring 2027; and Szot won the Best Actor Tony Award in 2008 for his role as Emile de Becque in the Broadway revival of South Pacific and was part of the original Broadway cast of & Juliet. 

Casting for On the Town is by Geoff Josselson Casting. The forthcoming concerts follow the success of OSL’s sold-out January 2026 performance of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!

“We are delighted to launch this new five-year initiative with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, establishing a new tradition that brings concert versions of iconic musicals to our stage,” said Carnegie Hall Executive and Artistic Director Clive Gillinson in an earlier statement. “We look forward to kicking off the project with Leonard Bernstein’s On the Town—an exuberant love letter to New York City and a work that feels especially at home at Carnegie Hall.”

“Following the tremendous success of Oklahoma! in Concert, we are thrilled to expand our partnership with Carnegie Hall through this exciting five-year series celebrating the rich legacy of American musical theatre,” added OSL President and Executive Director James Roe. “There is no better way to launch the series than with Bernstein’s On the Town—a
joyful, quintessentially New York work brought to life by top creative
team Rob Berman and Shuler Hensley. We look forward to sharing this
beloved musical with audiences and building on OSL’s tradition of bringing great music to life.”

Based on an idea by Jerome Robbins, On the Town
features music by Bernstein and a book and lyrics by Comden
and Green. The musical opened at the Adelphi Theatre December 28,
1944, directed by George Abbott with choreography by Robbins,
and ran for 462 performances. The most recent Broadway revival played the Lyric in 2014.

The musical tells the tale of three American sailors on a 24-hour leave in New York City before they head off to fight in World War II. The classic score includes “Come Up to My Place,” “I Can Cook, Too,” “Some Other Time,” and “New York, New York.”

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