Oliver Conant and Justyna Kostek to Host World Premiere of DIETRICH RIDES AGAIN

On Thursday, August 31, Oliver Conant (Author/Director) and Justyna Kostek (Author/Star) will host the World Premiere of their anticipated one-woman tour-de-force musical, DIETRICH RIDES AGAIN, about the life and times of Marlene Dietrich.

Playing for three weeks through Sunday, September 17 at the Medicine Show Theatre (549 West 52 Street - between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues), DIETRICH RIDES AGAIN will be directed by Oliver Conant and choreographed by Madeline Jaye.

Musical Direction and arrangements are by Jono Mainelli.

Miss Kostek's costumes are by Derek Nye Lockwood.

The show's iconic score will feature: "Puttin' On The Ritz", "The Laziest Gal In Town", "You're The Cream In My Coffee", "Falling In Love Again", "Look Me Over Closely", "Lili Marlene", "Hot Voodoo", "The Boys In The Backroom" and "Where Have All The Flowers Gone".

Marlene Dietrich was a European film sensation, Hollywood's highest paid actress, a lifelong fashion icon, an unceasing USO entertainer, an awarded humanitarian, an international philanthropist, a Medal of Freedom recipient, a Légion d'Honneur honoree, an Academy Award nominee, a Tony Award winner, the Patron Saint of cabaret, a bewitching singer, a natural dancer and an International diva.

The very young Justyna Kostek is following in the great diva's footsteps.

Born and raised in Poland, where she began her work in experimental theatre at a very young age, Justyna Kostek then established the successful and award-winning theatre company, Atelier Teatral, in Denmark. She is already making her mark in the New York Theatre scene while preparing, with Mr. Conant, DIETRICH RIDES AGAIN for an Off-Broadway move as well as sifting through the mounting interest in a National Tour.

Divas are born to achieve.

DIETRICH RIDES AGAIN

World Premiere
August 31

The Theatre
Medicine Show Theatre
549 West 52nd Street

The Playing Schedule
Thursday, August 31 through Sunday, September 17

Thursday @ 8:00pm
Friday @ 8:00pm
Saturday @ 3:00pm (Matinee)
Saturday @ 8:00pm
Sunday @ 3:00pm (Matinee)

For Reservations
dietrichridesagain.brownpapertickets.com/
or
1-800-838-3006

Tickets
$25 - General
$18
(Seniors and Students with Valid ID)

Marlene Dietrich
(December 27, 1901 - May 6, 1992)

Marlene Dietrich begun acting shortly after her promising career as a concert violinist was cut short by (as she told the story) an injury to her wrist while performing a complicated piece by Bach. Needing to support her family in inflation ridden post World War I Berlin she took to the stage, first as the private pupil of the great avant-guard director and theatre impresario Max Reinhardt, performing in over two dozen plays and cabaret acts. She also was featured and then had leading roles in many silent German language films. Although she was married all her life she had multiple affairs with both men and woman and expressed her sexuality and what we would now call "gender fluidity" with insouciance and panache. In 1929 she landed the coveted role of 'Lola Lola' in Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel, one of the first truly successful talkies and a kind of culmination of German expressionist film style. Immediately after the premiere of The Blue Angel, Marlene Dietrich set sail for America and Hollywood where she was under contract and made six more films with Von Sternberg as well as other classics of The Golden Age of Hollywood. Throughout the thirties her fierce anti-Nazi convictions led her to giving away a lot of the money she was making from films like Morocco, Shanghai Lilly, Blonde Venus and others to help her colleagues - technicians, actors, composers, writers - get out of Hitler's Germany and ultimately to joining the US Army where she performed often, on or near to the front lines with 5th Army in the European Theatre. After the war she gave "Victory Concerts" in London, Paris, Berlin and Salzburg, where she was heckled by Germans unwilling to forget or forgive her contribution to the defeat of the Third Reich. Through the nineteen-fifties, sixties and seventies she returned to the stage - the place she loved the best - in what was in effect a one woman show consisting of songs from her films such as "Falling in Love Again" from The Blue Angel and "The Boys in the Backroom" from Destry Rides Again, a comedic Western with Jimmy Stewart created largely by German exiles, as well as some unexpected favorites like Pete Seeger's "Where Have All The Flowers Gone." She died almost penniless in a luxurious apartment on the Avenue de Montaigne provided for her by the French state. When her coffin was carried out it was draped with the French flag on which were placed her Legion d'Honneur in recognition for her service in defending France during the World War II. In Germany her coffin, now draped in the flag of the Federal Republic of Germany, was lowered into a grave beside her mother. In her public utterances and in her autobiography Dietrich declared that her participation in WWII was the most important thing she ever did. It won her the United States Medal of Freedom, the first woman to receive the honor.

Justyna Kostek
(Author/Performer)

Born and raised in Poland, where she began her work in experimental theatre at a very young age, Justyna Kostek then established the successful and award-winning theatre company, Atelier Teatral, in Denmark. As the company's Artistic Director she also starred in and/or directed many of its highly acclaimed European productions. Her New York credits include the musicals Helen of Troy, NY; Women of History Fashion Show and Bound to Rise.

Oliver Conant
(Author/Director)

Oliver Conant has worked extensively as the esteemed and 'go-to' director in New York's off-off Broadway theatre scene. A ten-year member of the Medicine Show Theatre Ensemble, he directed its last three main stage plays. Other directorial credits include a revival of David Lindsay-Abaire's Kimberly Akimbo for Nicu's Spoon Theatre, and a triumphant manga and anime Romeo and Juliet for Queen's Shakespeare. As a child he was introduced to Greta Garbo by Salka Viertel and has, since then, felt somehow drawn to the extraordinary congregation of talent in the Berlin émigré community in Hollywood. He was featured in the Warner Brother films Summer of 42 and Class of 44. After which he travelled east to open on Broadway in Jean Kerr's domestic farce Finishing Touches.

Jono Mainelli
(Musical Direction & Arrangements)

Jono Mainelli has written, arranged, and/or tinkled the ivories for such wonderful talents as Patti LuPone, Jo Anne Worley, Charles Busch, Liliane Montevecchi, Lee Roy Reams, Marilyn Michael, Maximillian Schell, John Byner, Ernie and David Sabella, Varla Jean Merman, Jackie Hoffman, Brent Barrett, Jana Robbins, Annie Golden, Cynthia Nixon and Celeste Holm, to name a few. He was assistant to the legendary Stan Freeman on A Helluva Town! The Leonard Bernstein Revue at Rainbow & Stars. He has played Joe's Pub and every New York cabaret room, and arranged and played at the Williamstown Theater Festival Cabaret. Mr. Jono's musical The Glass House was produced at Lost Nation Theater in Montpelier, Vermont, and further developed at Stephen Schwartz' ASCAP Musical Theater Workshop. His one man show, Sixteen Bars: Notes From An Audition Pianist enjoyed an extended run at The Triad Theatre. During the January "audition season" for college programs, Jono has been thrilled to be the main pianist and has served on the Auditions Committee for all the NYU Tisch appointments for the last 9 years. He has attended The Bronx High of Science, Brown University and The Manhattan School of Music.

Madeline Jaye
(Choreography)

Madeline Jaye'S Choreography and Musical Staging credits include The Astonishing Times of Timothy Cratchit (WorkShop Theatre) five plays/musicals for The Medicine Show Theater Company, industrials for Mattel Toys, Inc., IBM, Bell South, Barbie Fashion Summit, Dole Foods' Easter on the White House Lawn, Hewlette Packard, Love, Valor ,Compassion! (American Academy of Dramatic Arts) as well as: On the Verge, Dancing at Lughnasa, ART, and the NYU Practicum (at Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute). She teaches Ballet, Jazz/Theatre Dance and Movement at LSTFI and LSTFI-NYU programs (since 1995). Concurrently, she has been on the Dance faculty at AADA, Steps Studio and Third Street Music School and guest teacher and/or substitute at AMDA, Broadway Dance Center, Steffi Nossen School of Dance and LaGuardia HS of Performing Arts. Privately, she teaches acting/ speech presentation and Effective Communication to clergy, trial attorneys and business executives, as well as coaching young performers for auditions and performance. Madeline has performed as a dancer/singer/actor on stages across USA, Europe, Japan, and the Middle East and on Film/TV (USA, Egypt, Germany), and spent 3 years as a Radio City Music Hall Rockette. She holds a BA with Honours in Dance, from Butler University with additional years of training as an actor and singer in NYC. She is the creator of Jaye Actors Movement: Bridging the Gap, a movement program designed to incite fluency between dance, singing and acting training. With Ron Navarre, she is co-creator of Actors LaunchTM, an audition and career preparatory workshop for actors.

Photos courtesy of The Headshot Truck

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