GET HAPPY!: A TRIBUTE TO THE WORLD'S GREATEST ENTERTAINER, JUDY GARLAND to Debut at The Green Room 42

Jenna Pastuszek and Joshua Zecher-Ross will debut GET HAPPY!: A Tribute to the World's Greatest Entertainer, Judy Garland, at The Green Room 42 in NYC. It's been 83 years since the world first heard Judy Garland sing about a place "somewhere over the rainbow," and her star power is just as potent as it was then. Why? What is it about Judy that continues to build new generations of infatuated admirers? What can we learn from her resilience and determination to forget her troubles?

Join Jenna Pastuszek and Music Director Joshua Zecher-Ross in this 100th birthday celebration of the world's greatest entertainer. With "lavishly clever arrangements", and "witty, endearing personal stories", this isn't a traditional Judy Garland tribute - there will be no impersonation here. Instead, lifelong Judy fans will love the cleverly curated playlist of beloved classics and forgotten gems while millennials and Gen Zers will discover an artist who transcends time. It's time to celebrate live entertainment again, and "forget your troubles, come on, GET HAPPY!"

Pastuszek and Zecher-Ross originally planned a May, 2020 Manhattan debut at The GR42. Pivoting, as many performers did throughout the industry shut down, the duo began performing the show in a variety of settings, including outdoor, masked, BYO Lawn Chair subscriber events, donor fundraisers in parking lots, special concert series, pre-recorded virtual screenings, and live ZOOM shows, to support theaters and non-profit organizations attempting to keep the arts afloat. In 2020 and 2021 alone, GET HAPPY! performances helped raise approximately twenty thousand dollars through ticket sales and attendee contributions.

As the pandemic evolved, the show did as well. "Judy Garland fought to rise above a plethora of trauma during her lifetime. How fortunate I was and am to get to sing through her catalog while healing my own over the past two years," Pastuszek said. "She was a fighter, and the stories I share throughout the evening honor her fight and center on navigating many, unfortunately all too common, pandemic experiences, including losing loved ones to COVID-19, eviction, moving, and more."

Patrick Parker, Associate Artistic Director of Paper Mill Playhouse, called the show "a musical treat from start to finish." He said, "The lavishly clever arrangements bring a fresh perspective to every familiar tune in an evening that is also filled with some unexpected rare musical moments and endearing stories told with wit and humor that had our audiences cheering for encores." And Associate Producer Jeremy Ehlinger of Bucks County Playhouse claims that the show is "an absolute delight! Our patrons fell in love with Jenna's gorgeous voice and her wonderful stage presence, and relished the stories she told that complimented her curated repertoire."

Additional recent performances of GET HAPPY! include Jim Carouso's Pajama Cast Party, Paper Mill Playhouse, Bucks County Playhouse, Delaware Theatre Company, Lake Dillon Theatre Company, East Lynne Theatre Company, CCAE Theatricals, EndStation Theatre Company, Haddonfield Plays & Players, Century Villages, The University of Virginia Colonnade Club, Jewish Toledo, Dracut Council on Aging, and the Zlock Performing Arts Center. Upcoming performances include the Surflight Theatre.

Jenna Pastuszek and Joshua Zecher-Ross will premiere a brand new show, ME, MYSELF & BARBRA, this summer.

PERFORMANCE DETAILS:

What: GET HAPPY!: A Tribute to the World's Greatest Entertainer, Judy Garland

Who: Jenna Pastuszek and Joshua Zecher-Ross

Where: The Green Room 42 (570 Tenth Ave, Fourth Floor, YOTEL NYC)

When: Thursday, April 7th at 7pm Head here for Tickets (In-person and virtual livestream tickets available)

ABOUT THE TEAM

Jenna Pastuszek (Performer, Writer, Producer) (she/her) is an acclaimed singer and actor who has graced stages and delighted audiences from Maine to Florida, from Cape May to Los Angeles. You can hear her on Pandora Radio as the voice of Starbucks Café, Amazon Alexa, Crest, and more. In addition to performing, Jenna is a highly sought-after voice teacher and performance coach. She is the Co-Founder of Innovative Voice Studio, where she trains Broadway artists, and of Innovative Performance, where she coaches leaders across a variety of industries to use their voices to better express themselves. Proud Ukrainian and member of AEA. Graduate of NYU Steinhardt & the University of Virginia. www.jennap.com @thejennap

Joshua Zecher-Ross (Music Supervisor, Arranger, Orchestrator) (he/him) has worked on hundreds of productions and concerts in New York and around North America as a pianist, music director, supervisor, conductor, arranger, and electronic music designer. Broadway: Be More Chill (conductor sub). Recently: The Louder We Get directed by Lonny Price at Theatre Calgary and Cheek to Cheek with the Omaha Symphony Orchestra. Joshua is a musical theatre instructor at the NY Film Academy and at Actor Therapy, a cantorial soloist and frequent synagogue musician in the NY area, and he holds a Bachelor of music in vocal performance from the Steinhardt School at New York University.

Ari Axelrod (Director) (he/him) is an actor, director, singer, and Jewish activist. His award winning show, "A Celebration of Jewish Broadway" has had three sold-out performances at the historic Birdland Jazz Club, one of which featured six-time Emmy & Tony nominee Tovah Feldshuh, as well as sold out performances in St. Louis, Chicago, Boca Raton, Ann Arbor, and via Zoom during COVID. In 2020, he received a MAC Award nomination for Best Male Vocalist, and won the BroadwayWorld Award for Best Live Zoom Performance. Ari Axelrod's first solo cabaret, "Taking the Wheel", was directed by Tony Award winner Faith Prince, and music directed by multiple MAC Award winner Alex Rybeck, and has been performed in multiple cities around the country. He is also the founder of Bridging the Gap, a performance studio dedicated to training the next generation of solo performers. Bridging the Gap has been featured at the historic Birdland Jazz Club as well as Feinstein's 54/Below. As a director, Ari's work has been seen at Paper Mill Playhouse, Birdland, Feinstein's/54 Below, The Green Room 42, and Don't Tell Mama. Recently, Ari was the recipient of The Jewish Week's prestigious 36 Under 36 Award which "honors 36 noteworthy New Yorkers, all 36 years old or younger, who make New York - and its many Jewish communities - better. These entrepreneurs, young leaders, and changemakers bring remarkable energy and new ideas to religion, philanthropy, the arts, Jewish learning, campus life, social action, inclusion and justice."

Caitlin C. Fahey (Dramaturg) (she/her) is a dramaturg and award-winning cabaret singer. Dedicated to the preservation of the American Songbook, her work combines research with performance, two of her favorite things. She seeks to empower her clients to create work they are proud of so that they stop waiting for permission to share their gifts with the world. Her debut cabaret show Party of One premiered at Don't Tell Mama, winning the 2017 BroadwayWorld Cabaret Award for best debut and a 2018 MAC Award nomination. In 2020, she was nominated for a BroadwayWorld Cabaret Award for Best Vocalist for her work in Blake Allen's An Evening Series at Green Room 42.

https://youtu.be/-3avcsC2XYg

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