We're Still Hot - the acclaimed new musical gets NYC premiere

By: BWW News Desk Dec. 10, 2004

Entertainment Events Inc., and Waxman Williams Entertainment with Robert Dragotta, will present the US premiere of We're Still Hot, the award-winning musical from Canada, that tells the story of four 50+ women putting together a show for their 35th high school reunion. We're Still Hot, with a book by JJ McColl and score by Ms. McColl and Rueben Gurr, has taken Canada by storm, performing for sold out engagements in Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Sue Wolf will direct.

Featured in the cast will be Cheryl Freeman (whose credits include Fame on 42nd Street, The Who's "Tommy," Play On, and The Civil War for which she garnered Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Award nominations); Deirdre Kingsbury; Melodie Wolford, and Jane Seaman (Broadway credits include The Secret Garden, Anything Goes, Big River, Sound of Music, and Man of La Mancha).

The Off-Broadway premiere will begin performances January 5th, with opening night set for January 27th, at the Theater at St. Luke's, 308 West 46th Street, the long time home of such popular Off-Broadway fare as Tony n' Tina's Wedding, Late Nite Catechism, and Maybe Baby It's You. Performances will be Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8 pm, with matinees Wednesday at 2 pm, Saturday and Sunday 3 pm.

JJ McColl, a veteran of the Canadian Broadcasting Company, based We're Still Hot on stories she recorded of dozens of women at a series of potluck dinners. Collaborating with her was Rueben Gurr, a musician since the late 1960s. He currently has three publications in print, Music Therapy and the Guitar, A Manual for the Singing Songwriter, and Forms, Styles and Idioms: Tools for Arranging, Improvising and Composing.

Ultimately, after a long and winding journey from being Peter Marshall's cue card girl on the original "Hollywood Squares" to a critic for Variety, Sue Wolf landed in the arena of producing and directing stand-up comedy shows. She has worked for Comedy Central, MTV, Disney, Lifetime, CBS, ABC, TBS, UPN and has had over 50 shows on HBO. She is known for the classic long-form one-comic-per-half-hour shows that broke ground back in the '80s. In addition to spearheading the acclaimed series "One Night Stand," she produced the first all-Black stand-up show called "Uptown Comedy Express," and the first all female stand-up show called "Women of the Night." Ms. Wolf's affinity for working with comics and actors led her to produce and/or direct specials which included Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Ellen DeGeneres, John Larroquette, Chris Rock, Tracy Ullman, Paul Rodriguez, Martin Mull, Denis Leary, Joy Behar, Janeanne Garofalo, Sandra Bernhardt, Julia Sweeney, and Martin Short. Currently, Ms. Wolf is directing another version of Funny Business (a musical about comics), shooting a documentary on Nixon's Enemies List at glacial speed, and enjoying the airplays of her hot-off-the-press, documentary for Comedy Central, Richard Pryor: "I Ain't Dead Yet, Mutherfucka!!!".

Entertainment Events Inc. set it's sights over 10 years ago on the impossible: to become a self sustained, profitable theatrical production company. In its first endeavor it acquired the rights to Late Nite Catechism, which it premiered in Boston in 1995. Since then, EEI added Maybe Baby, It's You, Tony N' Tina's Wedding, Defending the Caveman, Finnegan's Farewell, Menopause The Musical, Late Nite Catechism II, and Sister's Christmas Catechism to its roster of lucrative touring properties. Entertainment Events productions have been presented in all 50 states as well as in Canada, Europe, Australia and Asia grossing over 75 million dollars in box office. Along the way EEI exceeded in its initial goal and continues to reach new benchmarks adding to its reputation for providing successful, affordable works for the stage.

Waxman Williams Entertainment represents the merging talents of two of Broadway's most prolific producers. Together, Anita Waxman and Elizabeth Williams' productions have received seventy-one Tony Award nominations and sixteen Tony Awards. Waxman Williams Entertainment is currently represented on Broadway by Andrew Lloyd Webber's production of A R Rahman's Bombay Dreams, and in London's West End by Marina Carr's By the Bog of Cats starring Holly Hunter. Most recently, Waxman Williams produced the Sam Mendes revival of Gypsy starring Bernadette Peters, Suzan-Lori Parks' Pulitzer Prize-winning play Topdog/ Underdog directed by George C. Wolfe, as well as the revivals of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song, Michael Frayn's Noises Off directed by Jeremy Sams, Bernard Pomerance's The Elephant Man directed by Sean Mathias, and the downtown sensation Debbie Does Dallas. Currently, Waxman Williams is serving as executive producers of a new unscripted reality series entitled "The Scholar" for ABC-TV with partners Jaye Pace, Shannon Meairs, Martin/Stein Productions (Steve Martin and Joan Stein) and Carsey Werner. Anita Waxman and Elizabeth Williams' past credits include three Tony Award-winning revivals: Cabaret directed by Mr. Mendes, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the Donmar Warehouse production of The Real Thing. Other Broadway productions include The Music Man, The Wild Party, The Waverly Gallery, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Electra, It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues, and Mark Salem's Mind Games. West End productions include the Donmar Warehouse transfers of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing directed by David Leveaux, David Mamet's Boston Marriage directed by Phyllida Lloyd and Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero directed by Mark Brokaw, as well as Ragtime, Hitchcock Blonde, and Mark Salem's Mind Games. Among other projects, Ms. Waxman and Ms. Williams have been developing new musicals based upon the Oscar-winning films Doctor Zhivago and Marty. Ms. Waxman's prior productions include Horton Foote's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Young Man from Atlanta, Wild Honey and Mrs. Klein with Uta Hagen. Ms. Waxman has also developed the erotic thriller Bitten, which is now in pre-production with partners Industry Films and Warner Bros., and will be produced under the Waxman Williams Entertainment banner. Ms. Williams' productions include Crazy for You, which won the award for Best Musical in New York, London, Toronto, Australia, Chicago and Los Angeles, and through her involvement with Fifth Avenue Productions, who served as the American financiers for the West End, Broadway, and international companies of The Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables.

Robert Dragotta is currently producing with The Culture Project the Off Broadway hit, White Chocolate at the Century Theater. Earlier in the year, he was producer with The Culture Project for the award-winning hit Sarah Jones bridge and tunnel. He is currently a producer of Bombay Dreams on Broadway. He recently produced Lorna Luft's tribute to Judy Garland at the Savoy Theater in London and the Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale Florida. Mr. Dragotta produced the national tour of Some Like it Hot, starring Tony Curtis and recently co-produced the Broadway revival of Flower Drum Song with Lea Salonga. He co-produced with Patricia Barry, Epic Proportions at the Helen Hayes Theater. In 2000 he produced Kathy Buckley's one-woman show Now Hear This! at the Lamb's Theater and Bruce Graham's Minor Demons at the Century. Through his long association with Waxman/Williams Entertainment he has co-produced for Broadway the following: Noises Off, starring Patti LuPone and Peter Gallagher. Electra, The Elephant Man, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, starring Gary Sinese and David Mamet's Boston Marriage in London's West End. He was in investor in Russell Simmons Def Poetry, which won a 2003 Tony Award.

Musical direction will be by Alan Plado. We're Still Hot will have set design by Takeshi Kata, costume design by Philip Heckman, lighting design by Greg Cohen and sound design by Drew Levy.

For tickets, which will be $45 during previews (January 5th through 26th) and $55 for all other performances, you may visit Theatermania.com or call 212/352-3101 or toll free at 866/811-4111. For more information, visit http://www.werestillhot.com/

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We're Still Hot - the acclaimed new musical gets NYC premiere

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