Theater: Playlist Of Your Dreams

The music of rock's greatest generation, long absent from the theater, is finding new life on stage

Laura Nyro, just 19 and wearing a black gown with an angel's wing on her shoulder, got booed off the stage at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. That may help explain why, for the rest of her career, this rock innovator shied away from the limelight, writing songs that others turned into hits (Stoned Soul Picnic for the 5th Dimension; And When I Die for Blood, Sweat and Tears; Stoney End for Barbra Streisand). The crowd at that landmark Monterey festival was more into high-energy rockers like Janis Joplin, for whom performing was as intoxicating as the heroin that eventually killed...

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