Photo Coverage: NYMF's Les Enfants de Paris Presents Fleur's Cabaret

The Hot Sardines' straight-up, foot-stomping jazz will be accented by the effervescent Mira Stroika, "one of New York's most exciting new cabaret singers," according to the Huffington Post.

The Hot Sardines sound - wartime Paris via New Orleans, or the other way around - is steeped in hot jazz, salty stride piano, and the kind of music Louis Armstrong, Django Reinhardt and Fats Waller used to make: Straight-up, foot-stomping jazz. They manage to invoke the sounds of a near-century ago and stay resolutely in step with the current age.

The band was born when a stride piano player (Evan Palazzo) and a singer (Miz Elizabeth) met at an open vintage-jazz jam session advertised on Craigslist. Above a noodle shop on 49th Street, they discovered a mutual love for songs from the 1920s, '30s and '40s that no-one really plays anymore.
Members of the Sardines collective have worked with a genre-hopping roster that includes Rufus Wainwright, Sufjan Stevens, Lauren Ambrose, Madeleine Peyroux, Sondre Lerche, Vetiver, Of Montreal, Nicholas Payton, Kurt Elling, Branford Marsalis, the New York and Jerusalem Philharmonics, Slavic Soul Party and the Williamsburg Salsa Orchestra.

Summer 2011 has the Hot Sardines headlining Lincoln Center's Bastille Day festivities at Midsummer Night Swing - the band gets their French influence two ways, via the early jazz sound of New Orleans and the jazz manouche and French chanson their Paris-born vocalist listened to growing up.

Chanteuse/songwriter/accordionist Mira Stroika is a phenomenon unto herself. With a riveting voice and bombastic stage performance, Stroika offers up jaw-dropping interpretations of the classics and undeniably original and infectious pop songwriting.

Stroika has toured internationally and performed in New York's hottest venues and underground parties including Lincoln Center, Galapagos Art Space, The Knitting Factory, Highline Ballroom, Zipper Factory, The Bitter End, Bowery Electric, Bowery Poetry Club, Drom, Mehanata, The Tank, Local 269, Littlefield, Googie's Lounge, The Living Room, Manhattan Cocktail Gala, Shanghai Mermaid, The Danger, Lee Chappell's Cafe Panache and New York Fashion Week.

Les Enfants de Paris, featuring music and lyrics by David Levinson, book by Stacey Weingarten, and additional development and direction by Donna Drake; will begin performances on October 3rd at the TBG Theatre (312 West 36th Street, 3rd Floor, NYC 10018). Cast includes Nadine Malouf, Sevan K. Greene (Aftermath, Betrayed), Adam Halpin (Glory Days), Megan Reinking (Million Dollar Quartet, Hair, Boardwalk Empire), Jed Resnick (Avenue Q), Dan Kohler (Blue Man Group), and Blake Segal.

The creative team includes musical director Mark Hartman, choreographer Rhonda Miller, set designer Ann Bartek, lighting designer Brian Tovar, costume designer Kurt Alger, sound designer Michael Eisenberg, production stage manager Michael T. Clarkston, stage manager Tom Kosis and casting by Michael Cassara, CSA,. The production is being presented by Chinese Mother Jewish Daughter Productions, with general management by Stuart Shefter. Rachel Routh is associate producer.

The streets of Paris are not safe after young Pierre Frollo's love for a fiery Muslim refugee sparks a series of cataclysmic events. Featuring a chanson-and-Arab-influenced score, this gripping musical re-sets Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris amongst the disenfranchised youth and xenophobia of France 1958, and the Algerian War for Independence.

Performances are scheduled for Oct. 3 at 8 PM, Oct. 4 at 9 PM, Oct. 10 at 5 PM and 9 PM, Oct. 12 at 5 PM and Oct. 15 at 5 PM and 9 PM.

The TBG Theatre is located at 312 W36 St, 3rd floor. For more information please visit www.lesenfantsmusical.com or www.nymf.org/lesenfantsdeparis.

For tickets and more information about the 2011 New York Musical Theatre Festival, visit www.nymf.org.

LES ENFANTS DE PARIS will be presented as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). Now in its eighth year, NYMF is the largest annual musical theatre event in America and is widely regarded as the essential source for new material and talent discovery. NYMF provides a launching pad for the next generation of musicals and their creators to ensure the continued vitality of one of America's greatest art forms. Hailed as the "Sundance of Musical Theatre," NYMF discovers, nurtures, and promotes promising musical theatre artists and producers at all stages of development, and inspires a diverse audience through vibrant, accessible, powerful new work.

NYMF is the flagship program of National Music Theater Network, Inc., a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization. NYMF 2010 is presented in association with BroadwayWorld.com, Production Resource Group,TheaterMania.com, and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and is supported by AP-Red.com, Back Stage, Barnes and Noble, BroadwayBox.com, BroadwayInsider.com, Broadway.TV, Clear Channel Spectacolor, DFD-TV, King Displays, NASDAQ OMX, New World Stages, Next Magazine, PMD Promotions, The Port Authority of NY & NJ, Queerty.com, Season of Savings, Tekserve, Terra Fossil, Thomson Reuters, TheMenEvent.com, Times Square Squared, and Yelp. Major supporters include The ASCAP Foundation, BMI Foundation, Inc., The Broadway League, The BWF Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation with the support and encouragement of Jamie Ariel Phinney, The Charlie & Jane Fink Charitable Fund, The Rodgers & Hammerstein Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and The Theater League. NYMF is supported, in part, by an award from the National Endowment
for the Arts. NYMF is supported, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

NYMF Memberships, which combine charitable contributions with valuable, flexible ticket packages and perks like early seating, and tickets to individual events are currently available for purchase at (212) 352-3101 or www.nymf.org. Single
tickets for Festival events will go on sale September 1.

NYMF Memberships, which combine charitable contributions with valuable, flexible ticket packages and perks like early seating, and tickets to individual events are currently available for purchase at (212) 352-3101 or www.nymf.org. Single tickets for Festival events will go on sale September 1.

More Articles by This Author...