Joe Hartman to Bring CATHY DRESDEN: OLD FASHIONED GIRL to The Metropolitan Room

Cathy Dresden (played by Joe Hartman), will take the stage at The Metropolitan Room this summer in "An Old Fashioned Girl," directed by Daniel Adams, with Michael Hicks on the piano and accordion. The concert is set for July 12th at 7PM. For more information, visit cathydresden.com.

Go back in time to 1958, where Cathy Dresden, America's big-hearted songbird, is bringing her unique brand of mirth and music to Manhattan! She'll belt out a few tunes, tell stories, and ponder what it means to be an "old-fashioned" girl. See the entertainer that Fred Astaire says, "Can't dance, can't say no to a schnitzel, can sing a little!"

Cathy Dresden, the plucky, big hearted girl singer of the 50's, first came to America's attention through her appearances on everyone's favorite televised talent show, "Tony Polanko's Nationwide Hour of Power". Her full throated voice and gentle demeanor endeared her to viewers across the country and made her a three-time winner eligible to compete in the Grand Prize Championship". While Cathy did not take home the ultimate prize of $2,000 (losing to Teeny-Tina's Tiny Triplets", America's sweetheart Siamese triplette plate spinners) the exposure it won her jumpstarted her singing career and allowed her to embark on her "Butterchurn Tour" of the dairy states. But while she considers America's farmer's the "true backbone of this great country", this former small town girl is thrilled to be in Manhattan, singing and swinging the hits of today's songsmiths like Harold Arlen, The Gershwins, Cole Porter, and more!

Joe Hartman is proud to be the conduit through which Cathy Dresden, the singing dynamo who rose to the heights of her fame in the late fifties and early sixties has come to life. Cathy had her beginnings as a character in Los Angeles at Johnny Coppola's acting class at Studio C, and became the breakaway hit of his self-penned one-man show Overwhelming Underdogs which premiered in Austin, Texas in 2007. Cathy has since starred in her own show Cathy Dresden Sings For Her Supper and was the inspiration for and star of Cathy Dresden's Christmas Spectacular, a comedic homage to the celebrity holiday specials of the early sixties. Not confined to the theatre, Cathy has made appearances at numerous benefits, special events and night spots, warbling and belting out pop standards of the early to mid-twentieth century, and so New York seemed a natural place for her to come into her own.

Joe was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, but moved to Austin, Texas at age eight, so he has always felt like a Texan with a "corn fed" soul. He has also lived in Minneapolis, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Los Angeles, California, and wherever he lived, he has performed. Joe has appeared in many musicals, including regional productions of Guys and Dolls (Nicely-Nicely Johnson), 1940's Radio Hour (Wally Cox), Annie (Bert Healy), Company (Peter), Ordinary Days (Warren) and Chicago (Mary Sunshine). And as that last role indicates, before Cathy Dresden, Joe played a large number of ladies including Mrs. Mackelravey in Animal Crackers, Miss Bible Belt in Pageant, Mrs. Forrest in Psycho Beach Party, The Virgin Sacrifice in Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, and one of his personal favorites, Linda the Chicken in Milkmilklemonade. Joe has also appeared on screen in the independent film Able Edwards, the not so independent film Jingle All The Way, and in Showtime's The Great Commission, as well as in a number of commercials. As a writer, Joe has penned the previously mentioned one-man show Overwhelming Underdogs, several short plays including Love Lorelei, In A Gilded Cage, his solo show Idol Worship, (FronteraFest winner, Best of the Fest), and International House of Perception, co-written with Kirk German (FronteraFest winner, Best of the Fest). He has also written the radio drama In The Lake, and the screenplay for the short ilm Superchicks, featured in the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival.

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