Charnin and Burch Team Up for October Solo Show

Shelly Burch, who was the bright-eyed Star to Be in Annie in 1980, will reteam with that show's lyricist and director Martin Charnin for a new solo show entitled There's Always One More Song to Sing. The show, which is still in its developmental stages, will play Seattle's Crepe de Paris this October.

Charnin and Burch, who originated the role of Claudia in Nine, have been working on the show for over a year, and There's Always One More Song to Sing has been performed in a number of small regional venues such as Washington D.C.'s Blues Alley and Orlando's Mad Cow.

"Hopefully, it will end up being a one-woman theatre piece. It could go into a place like the Little Shubert or some place like that. It's biographical, and it's romantic and it celebrates life and love and hope. She's amazing and she's just as gifted as she was 25 years ago," stated Tony Award-nominee Charnin, who both provided lyrics for There's Always One More Song to Sing and directs. The seeds for the show (which was called Incurably Romantic during its Orlando run) were sown a few years ago after a production of Annie that Burch was to have directed (it never happened) led to her calling Charnin to discuss the musical. In its current state, There's Always One More Song to Sing consists of 15 mostly new songs with Charnin's lyrics set to 11 of his own tunes; the others feature words by Charles Strouse, Keith Levenson and Colin Romoff.

Burch recently portrayed a middle-aged Maid Marian in Charnin's Robin Hood: The Legend Continues; the production ran at Seattle's Village Theatre last year. On Broadway, she co-starred with Sammy Davis Jr. in Stop the World--I Want to Get Off, and has appeared regionally in Show Boat (at the Paper Mill Playhouse), Later Life, Man of La Mancha and A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline. She appeared as Delia Buchanan on the soap opera "One Life to Live."

With Strouse, Charnin received a Tony Award for Annie's score; he was also nominated for directing the show. He also received nods for both directing and penning the lyrics to The First. As a lyricist, his credits include Two by Two, I Remember Mama (both with music by Richard Rodgers) and Hot Spot, and he has directed The Flowering Peach, Cafe Crown, and A Little Family Business, among others. Charnin wrote the lyrics for the ill-fated sequel Annie Warbucks and originated the role of Big Deal in West Side Story.

For more information on Burch, visit www.shellyburch.org.