|
|
|
Tweet this article !
UrbanStages (Frances Hill, Founding Artistic Director), assisted by director/lyricist Peter Napolitano announces a series of musical evenings entitled Winter Rhythms, beginning on Thursday, December 1 and running through Thursday, December 11, 2011 at Urban Stages Theatre (259 West 30thStreet.) Tickets are $25 per show (both shows in one night, $40). A complimentary glass of wine is included with the price of admission. Tickets will be available on Smarttix.com or 212 868-4444.
Winter Rhythms marks the third year that Urban Stages has brought noted musical artists to its stage during the holiday period. Proceeds from the musical series helps to fund Urban Stages’ Outreach Program that brings over 300 free “arts in education” presentations to libraries and schools throughout the five boroughs.
The opening night benefit will take place on Thursday, December 1st and will honor Donald Smith, founder of the Mabel Mercer Foundation. The evening will be hosted by MAC Award-winner Klea Blackhurst and will feature some of cabaret’s brightest lights, including Jeff Harnar, Colleen McHugh, Karen Oberlin, Georgia Osborne, T. Oliver Reid and Jennifer Sheehan. The show will be followed by a champagne reception. Tickets for the opening night benefit performance and reception are $50.
The celebrated cabaret entertainer Steve Ross will close Winter Rhythms at Urban Stages on Sunday, December 11, with a champagne reception and supper. Tickets are $75.
Other performers to present solo shows in the series are Tony Award-winner Chuck Cooper, award-winning cabaret artists Karen Oberlin, Jennifer Sheehan, Gay Marshall, Janice Hall, Sarah Rice and David Vernon, Daryl Glenn and Ricky Ritzel, Gretchen Reinhagen, Tanya Holt, Maureen Taylor, classical pianist Steven Cantor, instrumentalist Sean Harkness (Guitar) and Sean Hagerty (composite of electronic instruments). Special group shows include: an evening devoted to the music of Emmy Award-winner Glen Roven, composer/conductor, featuring opera star Lauren Flanigan with The Broadway Youth Ensemble, Broadway performers Jeff McCarthy, Donna Lynne Champlin, Luba Mason, Nikolas King and noted opera singers Benjamin Perry Wenzelberg, Matthew Garrett and Christopher Herbert; acclaimed musical director/pianist Barry Levitt’s "Jazz Jam” with vocalists Kat Gang, Cleve Douglass and others to be announced; Very Special Material, an evening of the songs of Bistro Award-winner Richard Eisenberg, Bill Zeffiro and others with performers to be announced, and All in Good Time: The Songs of Barry Levitt and Peter Napolitano, featuring their work together and with other collaborators, to be performed by Tony nominee Robert Cuccioli and cabaret artists Julie Reyburn, Susan Winter, Barbara Porteus, Helena Grenot, Deb Berman, Rob Langeder, Stacie Perlman, Janice Hall, Joshua Dixon, Fran Leonardis and Gary Crawford.
Also included in the series will be seminars in the afternoons on Saturdays at 5pm and Sundays at 3pm at Urban Stages Theatre, 259 West 30th Street. These seminars are co sponsored by the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs (MAC; Lennie Watts, President) and Urban Stages. They are free to MAC members and Winter Rhythms ticket holders.
Winter Rhythms
December 1- 11, 2011
Urban Stages is located at 259 West 30 Street
Performance schedule: Monday through Saturday at 7pm & 9pm
Sunday 5pm, 7pm & 9pm
FREE SEMINARS
Saturdays at 5pm and Sundays at 3pm
Urban Stages and The Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs (MAC) will host seminars
Free for MAC Members and
Winter Rhythms ticket holders
Tickets are $25 ($40 for two shows, one night) with a complimentary glass of wine
Opening night honoring Donald Smith, Hosted by Klea Blackhurst, is $50
Closing night show and reception, featuring Steve Ross is $75 and may be purchased through the Urban Stages office, (212)421-1380
Tickets for all other shows can be purchased by visiting www.SmartTix.com or calling (212)868-4444
For more information please visit www.urbanstages.org or (212)421-1380.
Artists and schedule are subject to change
Photo link for Winter Rhythms
WINTER RHYTHMS COMPLETE SCHEDULE*
Urban Stages – music evenings
Thursday, December 1 at 7pm Opening night Tribute to Donald Smith
Hosted by Klea Blackhurst, with Jeff Harnar, Valerie Lemon, Colleen McHugh, Karen Oberlin, Georgia Osborne and T. Oliver Reid. Directed by Peter Napolitano. Music Director: Bill Zeffiro.
Friday, December 2 at 7pm MAC, Bistro and Nightlife Award winner Karen Oberlin Music Director: Jon Weber
Friday, December 2 at 9pm Jennifer Sheehan (Dorothy Loudon Award, Margaret Whiting Award for Excellence in Cabaret 2011, First Noel Coward Award in 2010)
Saturday, December 3 at 5pm MAC Seminar with participants TBA
Saturday, December 3 at 7pm MAC and Bistro Award winner Sarah Rice (Orig. Johanna, Sweeney Todd) & David Vernon in HISTORY HERSTORY: Where Truth Lies.
Directed by JoAnn Yeoman, with Ray Fellman on piano
Saturday, December 3 at 9pm TBA
Sunday, December 4 at 3pm MAC Seminar with participants TBA
Sunday, December 4 at 5pm Steven Cantor, acclaimed classical pianist (American Chamber Opera Company, Marc Morris Dance Company)
Sunday, December 4 at 7pm Tony Award winner Chuck Cooper (The Life)
Sunday, December 4 at 9pm Sean Hagerty, jazz and electronic musician
Monday, December 5 at 7pm Gay Marshall (Jacques Brel, La Cage aux Folles Nat. Tour)
Monday, December 5 at 9pm Emmy Award winner Glen Roven’s I Hate Music: The Songs and Music of Glen Roven with Lauren Flanigan, The Broadway Youth Ensemble,
Broadway performers Jeff McCarthy, Donna Lynne Champlin, Luba Mason, Nikolas King and noted opera singers Benjamin Perry Wenzelberg,
Matthew Garrett and Christopher Herbert
Tuesday, December 6 at 7pm Bistro Award winner Janice Hall in I’d Rather Be Doing This Directed by Peter Napolitano. Musical director: Mathew Martin Ward
Tuesday, December 6 at 9pm Bistro and MAC Award-winner Sean Harkness, guitarist/composer
Wednesday, December 7 at 7pm Barry Levitt’s “Jazz Jam” with vocalists Kat Gang, Cleve Douglass and others
Wednesday, December 7 at 9pm Very Special Material, a songwriters showcase featuring the work of Richard Eisenberg, Bill Zeffiro and others. Performers TBA.
Thursday, December 8 at 7pm Multiple MAC/Bistro/Nightlife Award-winners Daryl Glenn & Ricky Ritzel in A Ritzmas Daryl with Alison Nussbaum. Directed by Jim Luzar
Thursday, December 8 at 9pm Maureen Taylor in Too Marvelous! A Tribute to Lauren Bacall Directed by Jay Rogers. Musical Director: John DiPinto
Friday, December 9 at 7pm All in Good Time: The Songs of Barry Levitt and Peter Napolitano, featuring their work together and with other collaborators with Tony nominee
Robert Cuccioli (Jekyll and Hyde) and cabaret artists Julie Reyburn, Susan Winter, Barbara Porteus, Helena Grenot, Deb Berman, Rob Langeder,
Stacie Perlman, Janice Hall, Joshua Dixon, Fran Leonardis and Gary Crawford
Friday, December 9 at 9pm Hip hop artist/actor/author Bryonn Bain in Lockdown Unplugged: A Lyrical Concert Experiment with Marco Rizzuto, Jazzmen Johnson and
Nick Moyer
Saturday, December 10 at 5pm MAC Seminar with participants TBA
Saturday, December 10 at 7pm Bistro, Nightlife and MAC winner Gretchen Reinhagen in Both Sides Now. Directed by Barry Kleinbort. Music Director: Tracy Stark
Saturday, December 10 at 9pm Cabaret artist Tanya Holt. Directed by Lennie Watts. MD: Tracy Stark
Sunday, December 11 at 3pm MAC Seminar with participants TBA
Sunday, December 11 at 5pm Final Evening Benefit with Steve Ross – Champagne and supper.
*schedule subject to change
URBAN STAGES (Producer) is an award-winning, not-for-profit Off-Broadway Theatre Company founded in 1984 by current Artistic Director Frances Hill. Over the past 27 years, Urban Stages has produced over 80 productions (mostly world premieres) most recently the world premiere of Bill Bowers Beyond Broadway, and the award winning musical Langston in Harlem by Kent Gash, Walter Marks with Langston Hughes poetry, which received a Drama Desk nomination for Best Actress, a John Callaway Award for Best Choreography and four AUDELCO Awards including Best Musical. The New York Premiere of ReEntry by KJ Sanchez and Emily Ackerman, produced in 2010, is currently touring military bases and regional theatres across the country. The world premiere of the Joe Iconis musical ReWrite. Urban Stages’ 2011 Musical Legends garnered several nominations and awards from the prestigious MAC committee. They also presented the American Premiere of Oxford Roof Climbers’ Rebellion by Stephen Massicotte which transferred to Albany's Capital Repertory Theatre. Pulitzer Prize finalist, Eisa Davis’ Bulrusher (2007), two Drama Desk nominations, an Outer Critic's Circle Award, an Obie nomination and eight AUDELCO nominations. Our productions of Men on the Verge of A Hispanic Breakdown, by Guillermo Reyes and Minor Demons, by Bruce Graham, subsequently moved to commercial theatres. Chili Queen, a play by newscaster Jim Lehrer, transferred to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. (1989). The majority of works developed at Urban Stages have had further productions commercially, regionally and abroad. Numerous projects developed at Urban Stages have been adapted into film and television projects, including Scar, by Murray Mednick, Conversations with the Goddesses, by Agapi Stassinopoulos and Cotton Mary, by Alexandra Viets. Urban Stages has a consistent history of discovering new writers to the theatre community and introducing their plays into theatrical repertory.
PETER NAPOLITANO (Producing Associate, Urban Stages Winter Rhythms) has received the BMI Bistro Award (director) and two MAC Awards (lyricist, producer) for his recent work in leading NY cabaret venues, including Feinstein’s at Loews Regency, the Oak Room at The Algonquin Hotel and Metropolitan Room. He was lyricist of Tropicana, book and direction by the legendary George Abbott, produced by Musical Theatre Works; and lyricist/librettist of The Lady in Penthouse B, music by Matthew Ward, produced “Mufti Style” by the York Theatre, starring Nancy Dussault. With composer and celebrated musical director Barry Levitt, he’s currently developing the book and lyrics of Nicky’s Wedding (adapted from his prize-winning play) at the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, while writing special material for some of NY’s outstanding cabaret artists. Other highlights of his varied career: working with the ground-breaking Off-Broadway Ridiculous Theatrical Co. and The Glines; directing the early solo work of Charles Busch; contributing editor of The Blockbuster Guide to Movies on Video (Dell); and author of a modern lLove essay for The New York Times. For Urban Stages, he helped produce this year’s Musical Legends Tribute series and directed Grand Illusions: The Music of Marlene Dietrich starring Bistro Award-winner Janice Hall.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
