The BEST episodes of Great Performances season 19
Every episode of Great Performances season 19, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Great Performances season 19!
Great Performances, a television series devoted to the performing arts, has been telecast on PBS since 1972. The show is produced by WNET in New York City. It is one of the longest running performing arts anthologies on television, second only to Hallmark Hall of Fame. Great Performances presents concerts, ballet, opera, an occasional documentary, and plays. The series has also won many television awards, including an Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, and an Image Award, with nods from the Directors Guild of America and the Cinema Audio Society.
#1 - The Fred Astaire Songbook
Season 19 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/8/1991
Audrey Hepburn hosts this loving look back at Fred Astaire and the composers who wrote legendary songs for him.
#2 - Spike & Co.: Do It Acapella
Season 19 - Episode 1 - Aired 5/10/1990
#3 - The Colored Museum
Season 19 - Episode 2 - Aired 2/1/1991
The Colored Museum is a play written by George C. Wolfe that premiered in 1986, directed by L. Kenneth Richardson. In a series of 11 “exhibits” (sketches), the review explores and satirizes prominent themes and identities of African-American culture. "George C. Wolfe says the unthinkable, says it with uncompromising wit and leaves the audience, as well as sacred target, in ruins. The devastated audience, one should note, includes both Blacks and Whites. Mr. Wolfe is the kind of satirist, almost unheard of in today's timid theater, who takes no prisoners." – Frank Rich, The New York Times, 1986
#4 - Hamlet
Season 19 - Episode 3 - Aired 6/4/1990
Arguably Shakespeare's and theatre's greatest work, the tragedy of Hamlet's quest to admonish his uncle and seek revenge for his father's murder remains a breathless, tense and endlessly rich tale that continues to enthrall and inspire. With television director Kirk Browning, Kevin Kline adapts, directs and stars in this indelible production of Shakespeare's most famous play with a daring and depth few of his American contemporaries seem prepared to match.
#5 - Music by Richard Rodgers
Season 19 - Episode 5 - Aired 3/9/1990
Life and work of American composer Richard Rodgers, whose work, in collaboration with Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II, and others, gave the world dozens of the greatest musical theater successes. motion picture soundtracks and songs of the 20th century. Interviews with family and friends, artists who worked with him, home movies. Excerpts from many film and television productions featuring his work, including "Oklahoma!', "South Pacific", "The Sound of Music", "The King and I", "Carousel", "Pal Joey", "Cinderella", "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum", "Love Me Tonight", "I Married an Angel", "Babes in Arms".
#6 - American Indian Dance Theater: Finding the Circle
Season 19 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/2/1990
A program of traditional Native American dances encompassing a diverse range of sacred, seasonal, and celebratory Indian movement and music. Company members talk about their art and its special role in Indian life in segments taped at an intertribal powwow in Oklahoma and at the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico. Performed by the American Indian Dance Theater, a two-year-old company of Native American dancers from more than a dozen tribes.