The Apollo Theater to Relive Its Storied Past

The Apollo Theater will be transformed into an old-fashioned nightclub for a new revue show evoking the Harlem music clubs of the 1930s and 1940s, the theater announced on Tuesday.

The show, “Apollo Club Harlem,” will recall the theater's early years, when it often presented variety programs featuring big bands, singers, dancers, female impersonaters, acrobats and comedians. The seats will be removed from the orchestra level and the audience will sit at cafe tables, tended by waiters and waitresses.

The lineup will include the jazz vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater and Cecile McLorin Salvant, as well as the dancers Storyboard P and Dormeshia. The show will play three nights: Feb. 18, Feb. 22 and Feb 23. Tickets go on sale on Nov. 19.

Mikki Shepard, the Apollo's executive producer, said the fast-paced revue would pay homage to the great jazz musicians and dancers who once performed on the same stage, from bandleaders like Duke Ellington and Count Basi e to dancers like Earl “Snakehips” Tucker and the tap master John Bubbles. “The Apollo was headquarters for the popular music of the day - jazz - and ‘Apollo Club Harlem' will evoke the ‘first-name' artists whose performances resonate at the theater to this day,” she said in a press release.