Nicky Silver to Host SpeakEasy's PLACES, PLEASE Fall Benefit, 11/10

On Monday November 10, SpeakEasy Stage will proudly present "Places, Please!" an evening of song, sketches, and surprises to benefit the company.

Broadway playwright and raconteur Nicky Silver (Pterodactyls, The Food Chain, The Lyons) will host the event, which will team up SpeakEasy Board members with popular local performers for what is certain to be a wildly entertaining variety show.

SpeakEasy's own Producing Artistic Director Paul Daigneault is set to perform, as well as Alex Baker, the chairman of SpeakEasy's board.

Also scheduled to appear are popular local actors Leigh Barrett, Aimee Doherty, Kerry A. Dowling, John Kuntz, Will McGarrahan, and Kathy St. George.

Broadway veteran Larry Sousa will direct and choreograph the show, longtime SpeakEasy collaborator Paul S. Katz will music direct, and local composer David Reiffel is writing an original song to serve as the show's opening number.

"There is so much talent behind the scenes at SpeakEasy that you never get to see," said Producing Artistic Director Paul Daigneault. "I know this is going to be a very fun and very entertaining night."

In addition to purchasing tickets, friends of the company can also show their support by sponsoring a participant walk-a-thon style by visiting www.wizathon.com/placesplease.

Everyone attending the event will be invited to meet the cast after the show will at the South End's newest neighborhood nightspot, The Trophy Room, 26 Chandler Street, at the corner of Berkeley Street.

PLACES, PLEASE will take place on Monday, November 10 at 8PM in the Roberts Studio Theatre in the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street in Boston's South End.

Tickets are $75 with all proceeds going to benefit the company. For tickets or more information, the public is invited to call 617.933.8600 or visit www.SpeakEasyStage.com.

About the Host:

NICKY SILVER (Host) is the author of Too Much Sun, The Lyons, Pterodactyls, Fat Men in Skirts, Raised in Captivity, Free Will & Wanton Lust, The Maiden's Prayer, The Eros Trilogy, The Food Chain, Fit to be Tied, My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine, The Altruists, Beautiful Child, Three Changes, and The Agony & The Agony. He is the recipient of the Kesselring Prize and the Oppenhiemer Award as has earned four nominations for the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. His plays have been produced most notably at The Vineyard Theatre (eight premieres including The Lyons, which transferred to Broadway in 2012), and Playwrights Horizons, as well as across Europe and in both North and South America. Mr. Silver is a graduate of New York University and resides in New York City.

About the Artistic Team:

LARRY SOUSA (Director) has directed and choreographed musicals from coast to coast. His work has appeared on the stages of Pasadena Playhouse, Goodspeed Musicals, NYC's Joyce Theatre, Garry Marshall's Falcon Theatre, and The Coconut Grove Playhouse, to name a few.

In Boston, he directed Honk (Boston Children's Theatre), Alexander's House (Boston Gay Men's Chorus), and Reagle Music Theatre's productions of My Fair Lady, The Sound Of Music, and Bye Bye Birdie (IRNE Award), which he also choreographed. Larry is the recipient of the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award, the L.A. Ovation Award, two IRNE Awards, the Garland, and many more. Larry is also the choreographer of the new Broadway-bound musical Merry Go Round written by the legendary Sherman brothers (Mary Poppins) and featuring Florence Henderson in her return to Broadway.

PAUL S. KATZ (Music Director) has collaborated with SpeakEasy Stage for more than 20 hummable (but more often, unhummable) seasons of Boston-area premieres. From A New Brain to Zanna, Don't! and so much more in-between, he has shared many wonderful musical moments with SpeakEasy's actors, musicians, staff, and crew.

DAVID REIFFEL (Composer) has contributed some combination of music, lyrics, or book to 21 musical productions, including The Rag Doll (music and lyrics, Blue Spruce Theatre, IRNE Nomination, Best New Play) and Cupcake (lyrics, GBA Productions at Club Café). Nine of those shows were written while touring the United States as a founding member and resident composer/songwriter for the nationally acclaimed Cornerstone Theater Company. His full-length musical Glory is in development at the New Opera and Musical Theater Initiative (NOMTI) Advanced Writers' Lab, and he has been commissioned to write songs for a new adaptation of The Velveteen Rabbit at the Winsor School. Several reams of cabaret songs, including the popular "Lili Gandolfi's Driving Song," are widely performed. He has written incidental music and designed sound for many Boston stages. His sound design for A Disappearing Number can be heard presently at Underground Railway Theater, and he will design sound for Big Fish and Mothers and Sons for SpeakEasy in the coming spring.

For tickets or more information on PLACES, PLEASE, the public can call the Boston Theatre Scene Box Office at 617.933.8600 or visit www.BostonTheatreScene.com.

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