On Saturday night of Homecoming weekend, Neil Berg, composer of the off-Broadway hit musical The Prince and the Pauper, will present a concert tribute to the Great White Way featuring today's top Broadway stars -- including other BU grads who have gone on to careers in film and theater. The performers will recreate their hit songs from their hit shows, such as Phantom of the Opera, Jekyll and Hyde, Chicago, Les Miserables, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Rent and many others.

Performers will include Rita Harvey (star of The Phantom Of The Opera), Jeri Sager (star of Cats and Les Miserables), William Michaels (who starred in The Scarlett Pimpernel, Beauty and the Beast and Les Miserables), Danny Zolli (star of Jesus Christ Superstar) and Robert Evan, known for his thrilling portrayal of the title characters in Jekyll & Hyde.

Alumni performers who are proud to return to BU for this production include Jordan Leeds '83 (who appeared in Sunset Boulevard and Les Miserables, and is currently starring in the off-Broadway hit I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change); Joanne Borts '82 (who appeared with Eartha Kitt in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella at Madison Square Garden, on Broadway in Fiddler on the Roof, and in the national tour of Funny Girl, among many other credits. Joanne is also the director, co-author and co-star of Kids & Yiddish, the annual Off-Broadway family show at the Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre, and is a member of the teaching faculty at KlezKanada and KlezKamp) and Brett Nichols '03 (who was featured in Berg's The Prince & the Pauper).

This will be the first time Berg will perform at Binghamton University since he was a student. It's an important event for him; after all, it was BU's Theatre Department that produced his first musical, Ghost Story. "I loved Binghamton," he said. "I had the best years there -- I lived every second to the fullest."

Composing and producing musicals is not what Berg set out to do when he started college. "I was going to be a lawyer," he said. He chose Binghamton because he wanted to play baseball, and the coach here told him he would be able to play as a freshman. He went on to become an all-state centerfielder (he held the title for three years running). And, because he wanted to boost campus enthusiasm for athletics -- "Binghamton was a great school, but apathetic about sports" at the time, he said -- he became the mascot, Colonial Woody.

Berg has always had a flair for the dramatic -- and he's never been afraid to give it full rein. He certainly did that in his incarnation of Colonial Woody as a high-energy, wacky mascot who quickly collected a following of hard-core sports fans that called themselves the Psycho Squad. "We ran berserk through the dining halls and chased cheerleaders," said Berg, who was also Student Athletic Council president at the time. "It was a combination of theatrics and sports." His tactics worked: they boosted attendance at games from 400 to 3,000 fans. "Sports Illustrated did a story about us," he said.

A rhetoric and literature major, Berg said he always loved creative writing, storytelling and music. He played in bands through high school. And when a good buddy of his who was a theater major bet him 20 bags of Oodles of Noodles that Berg wouldn't audition for the school musical, Brigadoon, he was charged. "I went in with a song that I wrote, sat at the piano and auditioned," he said. "And I made it! It completely changed my life."

Berg loved the combination of storytelling and music in Brigadoon, and his involvement prompted him to study the history of musicals. He went on to compose his first full-length original musical for a fellow student's play, Ghost Story, which premiered in Watters Theater. In his senior year he was asked to write the scores for two more shows, Trelawney of the Wells and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, at the Cider Mill Playhouse, under the supervision of Theatre Professor Tom Kremer.

In addition to the many musicals he has written ("I write both the music and the lyrics 75 percent of the time and work with a lyricist 25 percent of the time," he said), Berg has also played the role of producer and artistic director for a host of concerts, served as musical director for a number of artists, performed and recorded with the rock and roll band Stone Caravan, and coordinated countless benefit concerts across the country for such organizations as the United Hospice Organization, the Red Cross, the YMCA, the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, Rockland Family Shelter, Jewish Family Services, the Archdiocese of New York City and many others.

Berg attributes his success to fearlessness, dogged perseverance and the great teachers he had at Binghamton. He took piano lessons with BU piano teacher and Music Professor Walter Ponce, a Bolivian concert pianist who now heads the piano department at UCLA. He was mentored by Susan Peters, the Theatre Department's musical director. Berg credits Kremer with being the first person to give him the opportunity to write professionally. He also credits Theatre Professor Fred Weiss, who directed Brigadoon.

Berg is married to Broadway actress Rita Harvey (they met on the ball field in Central Park) and says they love living in Nyack with their two cats, Lynus and Lucy.

For more information about Neil Berg and his many musicals and concert productions, visit his website at http://www.neilberg.cjb.net.