Shore Leave, Corbin Bleu and Megan Hilty Take On the Town at Carnegie Hall
Orchestra of St. Luke's names its cast for two January nights of Bernstein on 57th Street, the first show in a five-year run of musicals in concert
Corbin Bleu, Jin Ha and Colton Ryan will play the three sailors, with Megan Hilty as the cab driver Hildy, when Orchestra of St. Luke's performs Bernstein's On the Town in concert at Carnegie Hall on January 11 and 12, 2027.
On the Town is a musical about one day in New York, and Carnegie Hall sits on 57th Street and Seventh Avenue, right in the middle of the map the sailors run across. For two nights in January, a stage built for symphonies belongs to three men on a 24-hour pass.
Playbill announced the cast on Wednesday, October 21, and BroadwayWorld ran the same news that day.
Who Is in the Cast?
Bleu plays Ozzie, Jin Ha plays Chip and Ryan plays Gabey, Playbill reports. Emma Crow plays Ivy Smith, Hilty plays Hildy Esterhazy and the opera singer Isabel Leonard plays Claire de Loone. Paulo Szot plays Judge Pitkin W. Bridgework. More casting will be announced later.
In the show, each sailor finds a partner. Gabey chases Ivy Smith, Hildy sets her sights on Chip, and Ozzie meets Claire in a museum. That puts Ryan with Crow, Jin Ha with Hilty and Bleu with Leonard.
Rob Berman, the orchestra's Emmy- and Grammy-winning series music director, conducts a 45-piece orchestra, according to BroadwayWorld. Shuler Hensley, a Tony winner, directs, and Chase Brock choreographs.
What Is On the Town?
It is a 1944 musical with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, based on an idea by Jerome Robbins. It follows three sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in New York before they ship out to fight in World War II.
Clive Gillinson, Carnegie Hall's executive and artistic director, calls it "an exuberant love letter to New York City and a work that feels especially at home at Carnegie Hall," in a statement Playbill quotes.
James Roe, president and executive director of the orchestra, calls it "a joyful, quintessentially New York work."
A joyful, quintessentially New York work.
What Is the Five-Year Series?
On the Town opens a five-year partnership between Orchestra of St. Luke's and Carnegie Hall to present classic American musicals in concert. Gillinson describes it in the orchestra's announcement as "creating a new tradition that brings iconic musicals to the concert stage."
The orchestra has done this before. Its Oklahoma! In Concert played Carnegie Hall in January 2026 as part of the hall's United in Sound festival marking America at 250. Earlier it staged concert versions of Candide in 2018, Guys and Dolls in 2013, The Sound of Music in 2012 and Show Boat in 2008.
A concert musical is not a full staging. The orchestra sits onstage with the singers in front of it, and the score carries the story. For a Bernstein score as big as this one, that is a feature, not a compromise.
How Do You Get Tickets?
Performances start at 7 p.m. both nights in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, Carnegie Hall's main hall. Single tickets went on sale to the public on August 10, according to the orchestra, and the concerts can be added to Carnegie Hall subscriptions for the 2026-27 season.
None of the announcements list prices, and Carnegie Hall's event page would not load for us. Check CarnegieHall.org or the box office at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue for seats.
Hilty has a busy season in Manhattan. She also plays Mary opposite Andrew Rannells in It's a Wonderful Life on Broadway this holiday season, as we reported in our story on Rannells and Falsettos at Carnegie Hall.
Three sailors get one day in the city. Carnegie Hall is giving them two nights.
