Claybourne Elder, Ali Ewoldt, Alyssa Fox & More Set for AWKWARD THREESOME Tonight

MAC Award nominated songwriters Sam Carner & Derek Gregor (Unlock'd) and Drew Fornarola (COLLEGE The Musical) team up for AWKWARD THREESOME: Carner & Gregor and also Fornarola at The Duplex Thursday, June 28 at 9:30pm. They will be joined by some of Broadway's top young performers. The songwriters will present selections from their shows, as well as debuting a new song co-written by all three of them. The evening will be directed by Marlo Hunter with music direction by Gregor and Emily Whitaker.

Scheduled to perform are Claybourne Elder (Bonnie and Clyde); Ali Ewoldt (Les Miserables); Alyssa Fox (Wicked – SF); Julie Reiber (Wicked); A.J. Shively (La Cage Aux Folles); Brian Sills (The Lion King Tour); Sarah Stiles (Avenue Q); and Dashaun Young (The Lion King).

Sam Carner and Derek Gregor received their MFAs from NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. Their musical Unlock'd won a Richard Rodgers Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was produced at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2007, where it won the "Best of the Fest" audience award and received Talkin' Broadway Summer Theatre Festival Citations for "Outstanding New Musical" and "Outstanding Original Theatrical Score." Unlock'd has gone on to workshops at Theatre Works, Palo Alto and the Ravinia Festival outside Chicago. A workshop of their musical Island Song was presented at the 92nd St. Y Tribeca in October of 2011, went on to a workshops at Princeton University and Western Carolina University in the spring of 2012, and is undergoing further development. Three of the songs from Island Song have been nominated for Manhattan Association of Cabaret Awards: "Sing, But Don't Tell" (2011, Best Special Musical Material), "After Hours" (2011 Best Song), and "Make It Here" (2012 Best Song). They are currently developing the project. Other current projects include The Great Cookie Quest (a children's musical with book by Jim Weitzer), a ten-minute musical for the Prospect Theatre, and other projects. Sing, But Don't Tell, a concert of their songs, was presented at NYMF in the fall of 2009, and, in February of 2010, 12 cast members from the Broadway revival of HAIR performed an evening of their songs in a show called Buzzed. They have presented a number of other concerts of their songs, including series of concerts featuring a cast of college performers from around the country, entitled Carner & Gregor's Barely Legal Showtune Extravaganza. Sam and Derek were in residence at Yaddo in 2005. Derek writes country music with Laura Bell Bundy, and one of their songs was recently featured on her cd Longing for a Place Already Gone. He also founded the rock band M-LAB: http://www.mlabmusic.com, whose new cd A Bold And Hopeful Spark is now available. Over the past several years, Sam has lectured regularly on various musical-theatre-history-related topics at Yale. Sam has taught musical-theatre history and analysis courses at New York University and Yale. For more information on Sam and Derek: http://www.carnerandgregor.com.

Drew Fornarola is a songwriter and playwright living in New York City. He is currently developing a new musical for both stage and screen with DreamWorks Theatricals / Dreamworks Animation. Other theater: Super Claudio Bros: A Videogame Musical (Best Musical DC Fringe '10); COLLEGE The Musical (pub Dramatic Publishing Company); Thucydides (Samuel French Play Fest Winner, pub. Samuel French); and the children's musicals Uncle Pirate (based on the novel by Doug Rees, pub. Samuel French) and AWESOME ALLIE: First Kid Astronaut (pub. Theatrical Rights Worldwide). His new play Straight was a 2012 O'Neill Finalist and is under option by Tony Award-winning producer Andy Sandberg (Hair). Awards: NYMF Award for Excellence in Lyrics, John Wallowitch Award for songwriting, 2 MAC Award nominations, Richard Rodgers Award Nomination. B.A. Princeton University, BMI Workshop Alumnus, J.D. Fordham University School of Law (expected 2013). Drew is represented by Buddy Thomas at ICM Partners. http://www.drewfornarola.com.

The Duplex is located at 61 Christopher Street, just off the 1 train. $8 cover (plus 2 drink minimum). Reservations can be made at: http://www.theduplex.com/~thedup/webcalendar/view_entry.php?id=6606&date=20120628

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