MUSIC AT THE ODYSSEY to Celebrate Joni Mitchell, Stephen Sondheim & Nina Simone

Bass player John Snow will return to curate, music direct and emcee Odyssey Theatre Ensemble's live Music at the Odyssey series this summer with celebrations honoring Joni Mitchell, Stephen Sondheim and Nina Simone, plus two performances of the original cabaret event Wide Eyed in Wonder-Escapades and Serenades along Love's Trail of Longing starring Snow and multiple award-winning actor Tony Abatemarco.

The series kicks off on Saturday, June 25 with Music at the Odyssey Celebrates Joni Mitchell. Featured artists include vocalists Abby Litman, Moira Mack and Ren Martinez as well as sax player Ben Flocks of Sammy Miller and the Congregation. Backing them up are musical director Snow on bass, Nate Lichtenberger on drums, and Nathan Heldman on piano and keys.

Audience members on Saturday, July 9 and Saturday, July 16 will be treated to a new evening of cabaret created by and starring actor Tony Abatemarco and musician John Snow. Songs from the American songbook-including classics by George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, Les Paul and Mary Ford, as well as favorites by Joni Mitchell, Elvis Costello and Lennon/McCartney-are sung by Abatemarco to arrangements by Snow, who accompanies on piano and bass. Musical numbers are interspersed with patter between the two and stories from Abatemarco's colorful life.

On Saturday, August 6 it's Music at the Odyssey Celebrates Stephen Sondheim. Vocalists Bella Hicks, Carson Higgins and Max Sheldon sing songs composed by the master lyricist and composer along with other classics from stage and film musicals. The house band includes Snow on bass, Ryan Mcdiarmid on drums, and Paul Cornish on piano and keys.

Finally, sax player Flocks returns on Saturday, August 27 to join vocalists Clayton, India Carney and Segun Oluwadele for Music at the Odyssey Celebrates Nina Simone. Backing them up once again are Snow on bass, Mcdiarmid on drums, and Cornish on piano and keys.

Musical director John Snow has performed at the Hollywood Bowl, Umbria Jazz Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Virgil, Blue Whale and many other venues across the U.S, Canada, and Europe. He has recorded and performed with artists including Patrice Rushen, Kathryn Gallagher, Bill Irwin, Peter Erskine, Teodrose Avery, Moira Mack, Sammy Miller, Alphonso Hornes's Gotham Kings, The Rad Trads and other artists across different artistic spectrums. He is the founder, producer and musical director of the show series "John Snow's Coast to Coast." Snow is also an actor who has been seen on stage in Jersey Boys, Moonchildren, Bob and Les, and Great Awakening, as well as in feature films including Hamlet, So Shot and Speakeasy.

Tony Abatemarco is an Ovation and LA Weekly award-winning actor, director and playwright who served as co-artistic director of the Skylight Theatre Company for 12 years. He returns to the Odyssey where he appeared in Powerlines and Something's Rockin' in Denmark and directed four short plays for The Great American Playwrights Show and Bertolt Brecht's Puntilla and His Man Matti. Musical theater and opera credits include An Evening of Gershwin and Porter at New England Rep; a musical A Midsummer Night's Dream at the John Anson Ford Theatre; Wonderful Town for Reprise, the Orange County Performing Arts Center and L.A. Opera; The Abduction from the Seraglio at the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival; The Soldier's Tale at Long Beach Opera; Peter and the Starcatcher at South Coast Rep; and Wazo Wazo at The Night House and Sea Below Middle Sea at CTG's Taper, Too, both by Mimi Seton. He has been seen on L.A. stages including the Mark Taper Forum, Geffen Playhouse, South Coast Rep and International City Theatre, as well as regionally at Pittsburgh Public, Santa Fe Stages, Williamstown, Arena and the Folger and, in New York, at Rattlestick, The Public and Cherry Lane theaters. On screen, he appears in the limited series The Shrink Next Door on Apple TV+ and has been seen in dozens of TV shows and movies including How To Get Away With Murder, Beverly Hills Ninja 2, Town and Country, Sleeping with the Enemy, HBO's Sacrifice, The L Word, E.R. and Frasier, to name a few. He directed Lucifer's Child, starring Julie Harris, on Broadway, and Catwalk Confidential in London's West End. As a playwright, his critically acclaimed plays Beautified and Forever House premiered at the Skylight Theatre, and his volume of collected plays "ACTION/ITEMS, The Collected Plays of Tony Abatemarco" is available at amazon.com.

Tickets to Music at the Odyssey performances are $30. The Odyssey Theatre is located at 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd, between Santa Monica and Olympic Blvds. in West Los Angeles. Parking is $5 in the on-site parking lot.

To purchase tickets, and for more information including up-to-date Covid-19 protocols on the day of each performance, call (310) 477-2055 x2, or visit OdysseyTheatre.com.