Gary Morris Joins the Cast of the Broadway-Bound SOUL DOCTOR

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Country Music and Broadway great Gary Morris announces that he will join the cast of the Broadway-bound musical, SOUL DOCTOR. The pre-Broadway run debuts in South Florida on December 24, with shows in Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale. Soul Doctor is a exhilarating, riveting, and hilarious new Broadway-bound musical which tells the true story of the beloved and controversial father of popular Jewish music, Shlomo Carlebach.

SOUL DOCTOR takes us on a musical odyssey through the challenges and triumphs of this cultural phenomenon: his childhood escape from Nazi Germany, becoming a rabbinical prodigy in America; discovering Gospel and Soul music during his unlikely friendship with Nina Simone. It chronicles his meteoric rise as a “Rock Star-Rabbi” in the 1960s, performing with Bob Dylan, Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead; his struggle to reconcile his deep traditional roots with his desire to reach people of all backgrounds in the “free-love generation;” and his personal conflicts trying to keep his family together while traversing the globe as a “Soul Doctor.” He brought joy and song to the lonely, the searching and the brokenhearted.

The Grammy-Award winning Gary Morris is best known for his original recording of “Wind Beneath My Wings,” for which he won both an Academy of Country Music and a Country Music Association Award Single of the Year in 1984. Morris also is a recipient of Billboard’s New Male Artist of the Year in 1982.

Truly a music phenomenon, Gary’s voice is the only instrument needed to move the listener's heart and soul. At the height of his Nashville recording career 20 years ago, Morris boldly played opposite Linda Ronstadt in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of Puccini's La Boheme. He took on the heroic role of Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, the first American to do so, setting the standard for the challenging role and receiving resounding critical praise-- including a Drama Desk Best Actor nomination. Morris' acclaimed rendition of Bring Him Home anchors the platinum-selling Grammy Award-winning International cast album.

His magnificent voice has graced the historic stage of the Grand Ole Opry, as well as the White House, where he has performed for every living U.S. President – one of the only artists among all music genres to do so. Morris' versatile career and talents have taken him around the world. He has given a command performance for the Queen of England.

SOUL DOCTOR (www.shlomomusical.com) runs December 24 - January 8 at the Colony Theater, 1040 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach. It continues January 10 - 29 at Fort Lauderdale’s Parker Playhouse, 707 NE 8th Street. Individual tickets for the show can be purchased at the Colony Theatre (305.674.1040), Parker Playhouse (954.462.0222) or through Ticketmaster, www.ticketmaster.com.

Photo credit: Jeffrey Ellis