Lauren Kennedy will appear alongside frequent collaborator Jason Robert Brown and his band the Caucasian Rhythm Kings for an October 24th benefit concert of Brown's song cycle Songs for a New World. The evening, which will benefit the North Shore Music Theatre, will be held at Boston's John Hancock Hall (180 Berkeley St.) at 8 PM.
The North Shore Music Theatre was damaged in a July fire that caused two shows--Abyssinia and Camelot--to be moved to the Shubert Theatre; the latter is currently playing there. The high-profile theatre will re-open with The Full Monty, which will run from November 1st through 20th.Boston performers Leigh Barrett, Mary Callanan, Brian Robinson, Kerry Dowling, Andrew Giordano, Brendan McNab, Maryann Zschau and Lynn Von Thaden will also lend their talents to the concert, which will be directed by Tony McLean. Paul S. Katz will provide the musical direction to the event, in which the singers will be backed by a full symphonic orchestra. Songs for a New World features a musically-eclectic mosaic of numbers about relationships, the joys and regrets of life, and living in the moment. "Stars and Moon," "I'd Give it All For You," "Just One Step," and "I'm Not Afraid of Anything" are some of the songs from the show.
"What occurred at NSMT was devastating for their patrons, the theatre community, and the region and everyone involved with Songs for a New World
is honored to play a role in this fundraising effort. Thousands of
people in New England have ties to North Shore Music Theatre and we
encourage the public to support the theatre by attending this
performance and donating to a theatre that has had a major influence on
our community and now needs our help," stated McLean.Kennedy, who recently originated the role of Zelda Fitzgerald in Frank Wildhorn's Waiting for the Moon at the Lenape Regional Performing Arts Center, has appeared on Broadway in Side Show, Sunset Boulevard and Les Miserables. Other credits include The Ten Commandments (in LA), South Pacific (in London) and I Sing! (off-Broadway). Brown's The Last 5 Years,
which was cited as one of Time Magazine's "10 Best of 2001," won
Drama Desk Awards for Best Music and Best Lyrics. Brown won a 1999 Tony
Award for his score to Parade, a musical written with Alfred Uhry and
directed by Harold Prince, which premiered at Lincoln Center Theatre in
December 1998, subsequently winning both the Drama Desk and New York
Drama Critics' Circle Awards for Best New Musical. Parade was also
presented on a National Tour in 2000, which Brown conducted. Songs for
a New World opened Off-Broadway at the WPA Theatre in the fall of 1995,
and has since been seen in more than two hundred productions around the
world. Brown provided the orchestrations and contributed songs to Urban Cowboy, as well as handling the arrangements and musical direction. 13 and Honeymoon in Vegas are his other musicals-in-progress.
Tickets for the benefit concert are $35 and $50, and can be purchased by calling (978) 232-7200
or by visiting www.nsmt.org.
