Caroline O'Connor Joins Dermot Mulroney and Jenna Lea Rosen in MACK & MABEL in Los Angeles

Caroline O'Connor, star of stage and screen, joins the cast of ALL ROADS THEATRE COMPANY's fully staged and choreographed presentation of Jerry Herman's and Michael Stewart's beloved musical, MACK & MABEL In Concert, starring Dermot Mulroney and Jenna Lea Rosen. She will "tap her troubles away" as the wise-cracking hoofer Lottie Ames, Mack Sennett's oldest friend and supporter. A new Broadway commitment prevented originally announced Beth Leavel to appear in the production.

ALL ROADS THEATRE COMPANY (ARTCO), Los Angeles's brand new Equity Theatre Company, also announces the full cast of its inaugural production of MACK & MABEL. ARTCO will present the musical in a fully staged and choreographed "In-Concert" rendering, with a star-studded cast of 40, and an 18-piece orchestra dedicated to presenting Herman's glorious score to its most thrilling effect.

Film director William Desmond Taylor will be portrayed by Chad Doreck, with Lee James in the role of Frank (Capra.) Michael Shepperd plays the Soundstage Watchman. The comic team of producers will be played by Robert Yacko as Kleiman and Glenn Rosenblum as Fox. Arthur L. Ross will portray Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, with Myriam Ali as Ella The Pianist.

MACK & MABEL plays four performances only, February 16, 17 and 18, 2024 at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood. The production will be directed and choreographed by ARTCO founder and Producing Artistic Director Scott Thompson, and the ARTCO Orchestra with 18 musicians will be conducted by co-founder Fred Barton. Sylvie Gosse and Mark Marchillo will serve as Associate Choreographers.

MACK & MABEL's plot follows the tumultuous romantic and artistic relationship between silent-movie director Mack Sennett (played by Dermot Mulroney) and one of his biggest discoveries and stars, Mabel Normand (played by Jenna Lea Rosen). In a series of flashbacks, Sennett relates the glory days of Keystone Studios from 1911, when he discovered Normand and cast her in dozens of his early "two-reelers," through his creation of Sennett's Bathing Beauties and the Keystone Cops, to Mabel's death from tuberculosis in 1930.

Composer-Lyricist Jerry Herman wrote a strikingly haunting, compelling, and unusual score, a unique departure from his previous work, and deemed it his personal favorite. While capturing the tuneful honky-tonk of the early 1900s, he also conveyed the dark elements of the plot - while creating two of Broadway's greatest love songs: "I Won't Send Roses" and "Time Heals Everything." Herman's other Broadway scores include HELLO DOLLY!, MAME, DEAR WORLD, and LA CAGE AUX FOLLES.

Dermot Mulroney (Mack) is known for his work in numerous films such as Young Guns (1988), Staying Together (1989), Where the Day Takes You (1992), Point of No Return (1993), Angels in the Outfield (1994), My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), About Schmidt (2002), The Wedding Date (2005), Zodiac (2007), August: Osage County (2013), Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015), Scream VI (2023), The Last Outlaw (1993), Long Gone (1987) and Longtime Companion (1989) in which he played the first AIDS patient to die in a major American film. He has appeared on countless television shows including Friends, Shameless, American Horror Story, and Arrested Development. He wrote the song "Someone Else's Used Guitar" for Peter Bogdanovich's The Thing Called Love, in which he also starred.

Mulroney is also an accomplished cellist. In 1996, he was part of a band called the Low and Sweet Orchestra that released an album in 1996, "Goodbye to All That." In 2005 he appeared alongside Boyd Tinsley for Alanis Morissette's show at the House of Blues in Hollywood. He played the cello in the films The Thing Called Love, where he portrayed an aspiring country singer, as well as Daddy and Samantha, in which he portrayed a college student studying music. As lead vocalist he has also released his own Christmas album.

Jenna Lea Rosen (Mabel) is an exciting rising star, having played leads in Grease, The Addams Family, Beauty and the Beast, The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof and Saturday Night Fever. She has voiced multiple regular/recurring roles on the Disney Channel, Netflix and MAX and has sung in concerts and cabarets across the country with Patti LuPone, Richard M. Sherman, and Kristin Chenoweth.

Caroline O'Connor (Lottie Ames) has a special history with MACK & MABEL: She played the title role of Mabel Normand in the 1995 London production, earning an Olivier Award nomination. O'Connor made her Broadway debut as Velma Kelly in the CHICAGO revival, a role she first played in Australia (her home country.) She is known to US audiences nationwide for her second Broadway appearance as the tap-dancing fury named (Miss) Shields in A CHRISTMAS STORY: THE MUSICAL, performing her show-stopping number on the Tony Award broadcast. She has played countless lead roles in major musical productions in London, Paris, Sydney, and Melbourne, and on film she is remembered for her roles of Nini Legs-In-The Air in Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge" and Ethel Merman in the Cole Porter biopic "It's Delovely."

MACK & MABEL's ensemble will include Nichole Beeks, Amanda Carr, John Dellaporta, Brody Ensor, Cole Fletcher, Skylar Gaines, Ariana Nicole George, Sylvie Gosse, Flynn Henry, Shira Jackman, Danielle LaRauf, David Leppert, Holden Maples, Mark Marchillo, Julia Marley, Donovan Mendelovitz, Alexandra Mitchell, Gabby Rosales, Iva Erwin, and Erica Schaeffer.

Scott Thompson is an award-winning producer, director and choreographer who has produced and directed a "Who's Who" of today's Broadway talent at theatres around the United States, with an eclectic repertoire of productions including Gypsy starring Broadway legend Betty Buckley, Oliver! starring Tony Award winner Stephanie J. Block, and the notorious classic Tom Eyen play, Women Behind Bars, which enjoyed a successful run in Los Angeles at the Montalban Theatre starring Traci Lords and Eureka O'Hara, now streaming on Broadway HD and coming soon to Amazon Prime.




Fred Barton conducted the Tony-Award-winning musical City Of Angels at Los Angeles's Shubert Theatre, Cabaret at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Zorba with Anthony Quinn and Camelot with Robert Goulet at the Pantages Theatre, as well as composing the score for Women Behind Bars at the Montalban Theatre. Barton music-directed the original Forbidden Broadway in New York and Los Angeles, and music-supervised Spamilton at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. His TV composing credits include The Magic Schoolbus and Wonder Pets (both Emmy-Award winners), and he won the Harry Warren Award for his Film Scoring degree from USC.

ARTCO, the brainchild of founders Scott Thompson and Fred Barton, will follow its inaugural production with a 2024/2025 season of three productions: a classic play, a second classic musical, a digital new works play festival, and the rollout of a concert series, featuring an orchestra and major musical theatre performers, dedicated to the work of classic Broadway composers.

Tickets for MACK & MABEL at the El Portal Theatre are on sale now at https://ci.ovationtix.com/371/production/1180065, or by phoning 818-508-4200. The Theatre is located at 5269 Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood. There is ample metered street parking and five walking-distance metered parking lots.

https://youtu.be/ls9UeVGJMtM?si=M3N3n6cm1zwY1WSF

To post a comment, you must register and login.