"My Sinatra," a one-man musical created by and starring Cary Hoffman, opens today, Sunday April 22, at 3pm, after a ten-month preview period. The Off-Broadway opening, at Sofia's Downstairs Theatre in Times Square, completes the show's evolution from therapy, to PBS concert special (2009), to cabaret act (Triad Theatre), to cabaret-musical revue (Midtown Theater), to one-man tuner.
In "My Sinatra" Hoffman tells the implausible story of a nerdy Jewish kid from Long Island's idolization of the singer Frank Sinatra, and of how this obsession, fueled by his uncanny ability to sound like the singer, would be both a meal ticket and an emotional albatross.
Hoffman's journey of self-discovery through another man's voice is filled with scenes and recollections of the 50's and 60's on the Island, in Manhattan, and the Catskills. It also features an unforgettable score brimming with Ol' Blue Eyes hits (15 in all). Throughout this deeply candid performance Hoffman illustrates how Sinatra's honesty, charm, bravado, and machismo spoke directly to a lonely fatherless child struggling with self-esteem, not to mention a genetic block on the right way to snap.
"We all want to be someone else, to escape our own reality, it's a basic fantasy," Hoffman has said. "I used Sinatra as a life raft for survival. But I didn't develop my own life raft, me, until later." Hoffman turns 72 on April 24.
"My Sinatra's" performance schedule is as follows: Thursday & Friday at 7:30pm, Saturday at 8pm, and Sunday at 3pm. Tickets are $60, available online at
www.mysinatra.com or by phone at 212/352-3101 Sofia's Downstairs Theatre (below Sofia's Ristorante, in the Hotel Edison), 221 West 46
th Street (between 7
th & 8
th Avenues).
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