Andrea Bell Wolff's PRISONER OF LOVE to Honor Barry Levitt at Winter Rhythms Festival
By: BWW News Desk Dec. 12, 2017
Broadway and cabaret notable, Andrea Bell Wolff, offers up her acclaimed cabaret show "Prisoner of Love" on December 16th at 9:30 pm in a special holiday performance honoring her late director and colleague, Barry Levitt, at the Winter Rhythms Festival at Urban Stages.
The theme of Wolff's show is LOVE ... in all its guises ... and Wolff, a skilled musical comedy performer with copious Broadway and National Tour credits as well as a veteran TV personality, shares with her audience the ups-and-downs, laughter & tears, that is the roller-coaster ride of finding true love.
Her compelling repertoire features some of the finest tunes Broadway, Pop, and Great American Songbook have to offer, and includes music from Kander & Ebb, Joni Mitchell, Cole Porter, The Righteous Brothers and Carrie Underwood to name a few. The title song is a world premier written by Barry Levitt and Peter Napolitano. In October, Matthew Martin Ward stepped into the role of Musical Director in place of Barry Levitt. Ward leads a quartet that includes bassist Boots Maleson, Violinist Rob Thomas and percussionist Howie Gordon. Peter Napolitano, Director of Musical Theater at Urban Stages and Producer of Winter Rhythms, directs Wolff.
This year's Urban Stages Festival is dedicated to the memory of Maestro Barry Levitt who was the musical director and arranger for "Prisoner of Love," and a beloved member of the New York music community who passed away suddenly in September.
The performance is FREE.
IF YOU GO:
Andrea Bell Wolff performs "Prisoner of Love"
Conceived and Created by Andrea Bell Wolff and Barry Levitt
Directed by Peter Napolitano
December 16 at 9:30pm
Winter Rhythms at Urban Stages
259 West 30th Street, NYC.
Contact for tickets: jmae.events@gmail.com
Standing at a diminutive 4'11", Andrea (Bell) Wolff's soaring professional career began at age 17 when she was plucked from the Professional Children's School to play Ermengarde to Carol Channing's "Dolly" on a National Tour. She went on to a record-setting number of performances as both Ermengarde and Minnie Fay in "Hello, Dolly!", working on Broadway and touring that show and others with Carol Channing, Ethel Merman, Dorothy Lamour, Betty Grable and Phyllis Diller. A sampling of credits include: "The Imaginary Invalid" with E.G. Marshall and Ruby Dee, "Grease," opposite Andrea McArdle, and "George M!", "Li'l Abner," "Little Shop of Horrors," and "Funny Girl." Her work in the revue, "Bottoms Up!", took her from Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to Australia, and she has appeared at such distinguished venues as The St. James Theater, Goodspeed, The Papermill Playhouse and Sacramento Music Circus. Her work with the show band, Your Father's Mustache, landed her on the Ed Sullivan Show, and she was a regular on the Donny and Marie Show working with Sid and Marty Krofft. Wolff took a long break from performing to raise two children, and returned to the New York stage in 2011 with a show called "Loose Screws," a risqué, fictional biographical journey of an also-ran entertainer, Ms. Chelsea Sutton Place. In 2015, she mounted a multimedia revue featuring music emblematic of the 1960s "girl group" sound, titled "Bad Girls Do Cry," at Iridium and Don't Tell Mama to capacity crowds. Visit Andrea online at www.loosescrewsproductions.com/andrea-bell-wolff.htm.
During a career that has spanned four decades, Barry Levitt has been an active and forceful presence within the New York music community. Whether as a composer, pianist, conductor, music director, arranger, producer or educator, he has maintained a continuing level of excellence and professionalism. Aside from being the go to for so many singers, and working with the best of the best, he was also a past President of MAC, a MAC Award recipient and producer of MAC Award shows, produced and musically directed the Laurie Strauss Leukemia Foundation Annual Concert at Carnegie Hall, gave Master Classes, was Musical Director for Catskills on Broadway (Broadway, 1991),was orchestrator for Swinging on a Star (Broadway, 1995), conceived and wrote with Brenda Levitt and musically directed the revue Her Song (Off Broadway, 2006), he produced, arranged and conducted many performer CD recordings, wrote many songs with collaborator Peter Napolitano and they were in the midst of writing a new musical together.
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