Hit the Dance Floor With Highlights From Summer: The Donna Summer Musical | Playbill

Video Hit the Dance Floor With Highlights From Summer: The Donna Summer Musical 2018 Tony Award nominees LaChanze and Ariana DeBose and newcomer Storm Lever star as the hit-making artist whose voice defined the disco dance floor.
Ariana DeBose Joan Marcus

Summer: The Donna Summer Musical brings the life and music of late disco icon Donna Summer to Broadway this spring after a sold-out world premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse last fall.

Tony Award winner LaChanze (The Color Purple), Ariana DeBose (Hamilton), and Storm Lever (Freaky Friday) play Summer at various stages in her life, taking on the respective roles of Diva Donna, Disco Donna, and Duckling Donna.

Both LaChanze and DeBose were recognized for their work this season, with LaChanze receiving a Best Actress in a Leading Role Tony Award nomination, and DeBose receiving a Tony nomination for Best Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical.

The new musical includes more than 20 of the singer’s classic hits, including “Bad Girls,” “Hot Stuff,” “She Works Hard for the Money,” “Dim All the Lights,” “MacArthur Park,” “On the Radio,” and “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough).”

Summer’s voice defined the disco dance floor of the 1970s and early 80s, but she is rarely recognized for her songwriting abilities, having co-written eight of her ten hits, from the groundbreaking 17-minute dance epic “Love to Love You” in 1975, to the all-synthesizer backed 1977 release of “I Feel Love” (a game changer for electronic dance music), and 1979’s “Dim All the Lights,” which Summer wrote on her own.

Hit the dance floor with Summer: The Donna Summer Musical in the videos below:

Ariana DeBose sings the hit title track from Summer’s 1979 album Hot Stuff.

LaChanze performs “Last Dance,” originally featured on the soundtrack for the 1978 disco comedy Thank God It’s Friday, and later released as a single. The song won the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Original Song that year.

LaChanze sings “Friends Unknown” from Summer’s 1991 album Mistaken Identity.

All three Donnas take the stage to harmonize on “MacArthur Park,” the multi-million-selling disco single that earned Summer her first Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

 
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