Celebrating Cole Porter’s 125th anniversary

Born in the small city of Peru, Indiana in 1891, Cole Porter grew up to be the quintessential urban sophisticate – the composer-lyricist responsible for such Broadway musicals as “Can-Can,” “Silk Stockings,” “Anything Goes” and “Kiss Me Kate,” and a long list of songs (“Night and Day,” “Begin the Beguine,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”) that became instant standards.

In honor of the 125th anniversary of Porter’s birth, both the Grant Park Music Festival and the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park have planned special programs this summer.

Grant Park’s “Cole Porter Celebration” takes place July 8 and 9 at 8 p.m, on the stage of the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, where guest conductor Kevin Stites (a Chicago theater alum who has accrued a massive list of Broadway credits), will lead the Grant park Orchestra and Chorus, and be joined by soprano Kathy Voytko and mezzo-soprano Karen Mason (both of whom also are Chicago alums who have enjoyed great success on Broadway), tenor Hugh Panaro and baritone Ben Crawford.

The Ravinia homage, “You’re the Top: Cole Porter’s 125th Birthday,” is set for 8 p.m. on Aug. 17, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra led by David Alan Miller, Kevin Cole as host and pianist, and vocalists Klea Blackhurst (seen earlier this season as the star of the Drury Lane Theatre debut of “Hazel, A Musical Maid in America”), Sylvia McNair and Ryan VanDenBoom.

As a big fan of Voytko, who I first saw in several musicals at William Pullinsi’s much-loved but now defunct Candlelight Dinner Playhouse in Summit, Il., I decided to catch up with the actress who most recently was seen on Broadway in “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” and the short-lived new musical, “Tuck Everlasting.”

Voytko last appeared on a stage here in 2007 when she played Clara in the Chicago Shakespeare Theater production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Passion,” directed by Gary Griffin. She now lives in New Jersey with her husband, tenor John Cudia (another Broadway regular who has begun branching out into opera), and their two daughters, ages five and seven. But she still thinks of Chicago as her “second home,” and remains good friends with Chicago-based actors Heidi Kettenring and David Girolmo.

Raised in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Voytko studied musical theater at Shenandoah College and won a fellowship to study in New York after graduation.

“But I was scared to death of New York, and six months later I got my first job at the Fireside Theatre in Atkinson, Wisconsin, where I met the incomparable [choreographer] Marc Robin,” the actress recalled. “He told me to audition for an upcoming Candlelight production of ‘Crazy for You,’ so I headed to Chicago, and [director] Bill Pullinsi gave me my first Equity job.”

The show, which garnered her a Jeff Award in 1998, was the first of many she would do over the next three years in Chicago – at Candlelight, as well as at Drury Lane, the Marriott and Court Theatre. She would go on to be cast in the national touring company of “Phantom of the Opera” (where she met Cudia), and then settle in New York, where she was cast in her first Broadway show – a small role in the Trevor Nunn revival of “Oklahoma.”

“It was Marc Robin who was the first person who ever said to me: ‘You are going to be on Broadway, and I will be there to see it’,” said Voytko. “And not long ago I worked with him again at his Fulton Theatre in Lancaster, Pa. – filling in for Abby Mueller in ‘Mary Poppins’ when she left to join the cast of ‘Kinky Boots’ on Broadway.”

Voytko is one of those lucky performers who works constantly.

“Being a two-actor couple is not for the faint of heart,” she confesses. “But if your heart is in the arts you have no choice but to do it. John and I have been very lucky – and the gods of employment have been on my side – but along with some very fat years there also have been some very lean years, so we try not to be spendthrifts. I also have a good relationship with a number of orchestras – in Indianapolis, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, as well as in Vancouver, Canada – and perform different programs, including a greatest hits concert of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg songs [the creators of “Les Miserables,” “Miss Saigon” and “The Pirate Queen”]. I’ve also just started auditioning again.”

Although she has performed relatively little Cole Porter during her career (“In my summer stock days I was the fourth tap dancer to the left in a production of ‘Anything Goes’ in a theater in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia”), Voytko “loves the word-play in his songs, and their overall personality that gives you such a great sense of the fashions and values of his time – like his reference to Napoleon Brandy.”

Asked about her favorite songs in the Grant Park concert, Voytko said: “I have great fun with Hugh Panaro in ‘You’re the Top.’ I love my solo, ‘I Get a Kick Out of You.” And of course there’s ‘So in Love’.”

And what will she be wearing?

“I brought three gowns with me, and just had another one FedExed,” she said, laughing. “I’m still undecided.”

Note: Admission to the Grant Park Music Festival is free. For additional information visit http://www.grantparkmusicfestival.com.