Wonderful Town – A Walking Tour with Jamie Bernstein

Writes Jamie Bernstein: “Come along!" booms the tour guide in Wonderful Town's opening number, “Christopher Street.” This 1953 Broadway show – book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and score by my dad, Leonard Bernstein – is a love letter to the dizzy, bohemian good old days of Greenwich Village, as seen through the adventures of two sisters from Ohio. All these years later, I'm inviting you to “come along!” as I retrace some of the Village spots that appear in the show, plus a few additional points of interest.

Wonderful Town was Leonard Bernstein’s second Broadway salute to New York City. As with his first, On the Town, Bernstein teamed up with his beloved pals, lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Betty and Adolph were Villagers who had made an early name for themselves as cabaret artists at the nearby Village Vanguard. Bernstein, too, lived in the Village in those early years, and often accompanied his pals at the Vanguard. Together, the trio evoked that downtown world they knew and loved -- and put it on a Broadway stage.

Not only did Wonderful Town win seven Tony Awards; it featured Rosalind Russell's immortal performance as the brainy, boyfriend-starved sister, Ruth.

To get you in the mood for The Village Trip 2026, we’ll walk the storied streets of Wonderful Town together. Come along!

Meet: Under the Washington Square Arch, Fifth Avenue/Washington Square North.

4-5.30pm  (assemble 3.45pm)

SPECIAL OFFER: add launch party for $10
Festival Opening Party
6:00 pm to 8:00pm

The Church of the Village, 201 West 13th Street, NY 10011

Tickets are available for this very special evening, where for a modest ticket price you can enjoy a unique festival preview while enjoying a glass or three of wine and some tasty nibbles and mingling with the stars (and organizers!) of The Village Trip. And if you bundle the Wonderful Town tour with the party, we’ll give you an extra-special price of $45 for both events. What’s not to like? 

Select the Wonderful Town Tour + Opening Party Ticket option on the Get Tickets page.

Jamie Bernstein is an author, narrator, director, broadcaster, and filmmaker. Her 2018 memoir Famous Father Girl is about growing up with composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein, and pianist and actress Felicia Montealegre in an atmosphere bursting with music, theatre, and literature.

Jamie has written and narrated concerts about Mozart, Aaron Copland, and Stravinsky, as well as The Bernstein Beat, a family concert about her father modeled after his groundbreaking Young People’s Concerts. She appears worldwide performing her own scripted narrations as well as standard concert narrations, such as Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait and Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Jamie has produced and hosted the New York Philharmonic’s live national radio broadcasts, as well as many summer broadcasts from Tanglewood, and she recently narrated the NPR podcast The New York Phil Story: Made in New York. She is the co-director of Crescendo: The Power of Music, an award-winning documentary film focusing on children in struggling urban communities, who participate in youth orchestra programs for social transformation.

Additionally, Jamie’s articles and poetry have appeared in such publications as Symphony, Town & Country, The New York Times, and Opera News. She is the co-editor of “Prelude, Fugue & Riffs,” a monthly newsletter pertaining to her father’s legacy.

The Village Trip is proud to have worked with Jamie since 2022, when she created a special festival cabaret based on her father’s Greenwich Village musical Wonderful Town, with friends Janis Siegel, Michael Kelly, and Yaron Gershovsky.