Listening to the 1978 album “Even Now” eventually led to Marion, Illinois, native Mark Sanders leading One Voice: The Music of Barry Manilow, which is about to make its Chicagoland debut.
The Florida-based show will be performed May 6 to Beverly Arts Center in Chicago.
“When I first heard Barry it was at my cousin’s house in Herrin, Illinois, and she was a Fanilow,” said Sanders about the term for Manilow fans.
“I was 10 years old and she just got his new album. She played it for me. The first song I heard was ‘Even Now.’ I sing that in the show and tell the story before. That song is so powerful. At 10 years old I didn’t know what that song meant but I do now.
“He’s got such a catalog to choose from. It was hard to put the show together because there’s so much material. Obviously you have to do ‘I Write the Songs,’ ‘Copacabana,’ ‘Mandy,’ and all of those but it was actually exciting to relive a lot of the music and the songs to put the show together to reflect who I am.”
Sanders, who still has family living in Marion, attended kindergarten in Addison, lived in Naperville and Streamwood, went to Eastern Illinois University in Charleston and now resides just outside Fort Myers, Florida.
He first performed One Voice to a sold-out crowd in February 2020 in Fort Myers and has taken the show on tour to New York and the Marion Cultural & Civic Center where his 2022 performance of Manilow’s “I Am Your Child” hit home.
“As I performed in Marion for the first time since high school it really dawned on me during that concert (that) there’s certain words in the song — ‘I am your chance,’ ‘I am your hope,’ — that infused me as I looked out into the audience and saw an entire audience filled with people I knew,” Sanders said.
“The hall is now named after my high school choir teacher, who was influential to interesting me (in) theater,” he added about The Yolonde B. Peterson Performance Hall.
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“The people that cross through our lives make us who we are.”
Sanders and his pianist and musical director, Phil Hinton, will perform with musicians curated by Lisa Rock Entertainment for One Voice in Chicago.
“It is one of my favorite cities. It feels fantastic. It’s all surreal,” said Sanders, who planned to spend a few days in the area both before and after the gig.
“To get back to Chicago is very exciting. I toured with ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ through Chicago.”
Sanders, who cited Manilow’s “Somewhere in the Night,” as one of his favorite songs to perform live, said he hopes to see familiar faces at the show in Chicago’s Beverly community and meet new people.
“I love to hear the stories. I love to talk with people,” said Sanders, who is writing a new show called A Merry Manilow Christmas and preparing to perform One Voice with Gulf Coast Symphony in November in Florida.
“There’s a lot that might surprise you about the show, the music and the stories that you didn’t know.”
One Voice: The Music of Barry Manilow
When: 7:30 p.m. May 6
Where: Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St., Chicago
Tickets: $40
Information: 773-445-3838; thebeverlyartscenter.com
Jessi Virtusio is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.