Artistic Director David Saint announced that Angelo Parra's The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith will fill the formerly-to-be-announced slot at the New Brunswick Playhouse, running March 3 – 29. Opening night is set for Friday, March 6. Miche Braden, who portrayed Bessie Smith in the previous productions of the play, will recreate the title role once more in New Brunswick.
"Although one of the most successful entertainers of her time, Bessie Smith constantly faced racial discrimination at the clubs in which she performed. I was knocked out by
Miche Braden's extraordinary performance in this piece and felt it would fit perfectly in our theatre," said Mr. Saint.
Joe Brancato (pictured), who has directed the previous versions of the piece, will helm the New Brunswick production. Ms. Braden, in addition to performing, is also the show's musical director and arranger. She will be joined on stage by a pianist, bassist and sax player, yet to be cast. Individual tickets for The Devil's Music are now on sale, as well as flexible admission subscription packages. For further information, or to make a purchase, contact the
George Street Playhouse Box Office at 732-246-7717, or shop online at
www.GSPonline.org.
George Street Playhouse is located at 9 Livingston Avenue, in the heart of New Brunswick's dining and entertainment district.
The Devil's Music opens with a voice-over by Smith's upright bass player Pickle. The night is the eve of Smith's tragic death in a car accident in September 1937. Bessie Smith has just walked out of an engagement at a swank supper club after they wouldn't let her enter through the front door. She makes her way to the setting of the show – a "buffet-flat," – a den of music, gambling, food and sex, where she proceeds to regale her audience with tales from her life and her many loves – both male and female – and losses, most notably that of her son in a custody battle with a vengeful ex-husband. The Devil's Music contains adult themes and content, and is suggested for mature audiences.
Angelo Parra is an American playwright. He was born in Manhattan and grew up in The Bronx, New York City. After graduating from Fordham University, his career included work as a reporter/photographer, public relations professional, politician, free-lance writer, and PR and journalism teacher at New York University before turning to theatre in 1986. His first produced play, Casino, was presented at T. Schreiber Studio, and won a 1989 New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship in Playwriting and an Arts International grant (sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Information Agency, Rockefeller Foundation, and The Pew Charitable Trusts), among other awards.
His best-known work, "The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith," the critically acclaimed play with music on the life of Bessie Smith, was named "one of the top-10 Off-Broadway experiences of 2001" by the New York Daily News, "Best Solo Show" by Florida's Broward/Palm Beach New Times, and won a second NYFA Playwriting Fellowship (2000). The award-winning show was originally directed by
Joe Brancato and originally staged by Penguin Repertory Company, Stony Point, New York. Parra has production credits: in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C.; at
Florida Stage (Palm Beach), The Hartford Stage (Hartford, CT), Theatre Memphis, and at the
Cape Playhouse (Cape Cod); and, at the Edinburgh International Festival. Among Parra's other prize-winning plays is the hospital drama, Journey of the Heart, winner of the Jewel Box Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, and
David James Ellis national play awards in 1998. Also in 1998, Song of the Coquí, his Hispanic family drama with humor and dance, won the Chicano/Latino Literary Award (University of California, Irvine) and an "American Dream" prize by Repertorio Español in New York City.
Parra is a member of the BMI
Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop and The Dramatists Guild. He was a
Tennessee Williams Scholar at the 2000 Sewanee Writers Conference, and has taught playwriting at SUNY Rockland Community College. In addition to his BA in Communication Arts at Fordham, he earned an MA in Political Science at the New School in New York, and MFA in Playwriting at Brooklyn College. He is currently president of the Penguin Repertory Company Board of Trustees.
Joe Brancato is the Founding Artistic Director of Penguin Rep in Stony Point, Rockland County, NY, where he recently directed the NY premiere of Joel Drake Johnson's The Fall to Earth starring Tony Award winner
Michele Pawk. Named by the New York Times as "one of America's most insightful directors," Joe directed the NY premiere of Tryst at Promenade Theatre produced by
Morton Wolkowitz, as well as the Drama Desk Award-winning Cobb by
Lee Blessing produced by
Kevin Spacey at
Lucille Lortel Theatre and Falcon Theatre in L.A. His Off-Broadway credits include From Door to Door; The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith; One Shot, One Kill; 21/2 Jews; Last Romeo; My Italy Story; Escape from Happiness starring
Marsha Mason; The Big Swing starring
Madeline Kahn,
Sarah Jessica Parker and
Marisa Tomei;
Christopher Hampton's Treats; and
William Mastrosimone's The Understanding. Others include NYSF, Naked Angels, Melting Pot,
Primary Stages and regionally at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage, Houston's Alley Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Boston's New Repertory Theatre and Hartford's Theatreworks.
Miche Braden is a singer, actor, musician, songwriter, arranger and musical director. She is a product of the rich musical heritage of her hometown, Detroit, Michigan. In Detroit she was the founder & former lead singer of Straight Ahead (women's jazz band), & was a protege` of Motown musicians Thomas "Beans" Bowles, Earl Van Dyke (leader of The Funk Brothers), and Jazz Master Composer Harold McKinney. Miche's most recent endeavor was a very successful tour in Belgium & France with GOSPELS 4 LIFE with Musical Director and Singer Sabine Kouli for the Damien Foundation. She also had a successful run of her one-woman show, The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith for The Passage Theater in Trenton, NJ fall of 2007. Miche plays the lead and is Musical Director/Arranger in collaboration with director
Joe Brancato and playwright Angelo Parra. Miche has portrayed even more of the greatest Divas of the 20th Century.
Billie Holiday in "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, Valaida Snow in Hot Snow, & Ma Rainey in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. She served as Musical Director & actor in Hartford Stage's recent production of Mahalia: A Gospel Musical starring American Idol finalist & Broadway Diva
Frenchie Davis. Miche also portrayed Duchess DeLovely in the original cast of Hats:The Red Hat Society Musical which had its debut at the Denver Civic Theater Fall 2006. She is also Musical Director& Choral Arranger of The People's Temple by Leigh Fondakowski (Laramie Project). She will be returning to Hartford Stage to portray Momma in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison adapted by Lydia Diamond for the stage.
Miche is featured on the
James Carter release Gardenias For Lady Day (Sony/Columbia 2003) & performed with him at
Carnegie Hall April 2007. She has worked with Regina Carter,
Milt Hinton,
Lionel Hampton, Leon Thomas, & Eddie Harris. Miche is Artistic/Musical director and Founder of The Performance Art Chorale AKA The PAC, Vice President, Artist, and Musical Director of PMP Records & Enterprise where she is currently promoting her own CD, Diva Out Of Bounds, Ms. Miche. She is the former Minister of Music of Unity Fellowship Church New Brunswick.
Additional accomplishments include being the winner of Washington Mutual's"Big Shot On Broadway. Called Joel's Piano Woman by Fox 5 News in New York, her prize was replacing the star
Michael Cavanaugh in singing & playing the finale "New York State of Mind" in the Broadway show Movin' Out.
Under the leadership of Artistic Director
David Saint,
George Street Playhouse has become a nationally recognized theatre, presenting an acclaimed mainstage season while providing an artistic home for established and emerging theatre artists. Managing Director Todd Schmidt was appointed in October 2007. Founded in 1974, the Playhouse has been well represented by numerous productions both on and off-Broadway including
Anne Meara's Down the Garden Paths, the Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk and Drama League nominated production of The Spitfire Grill and the Broadway hit and Tony® and Pulitzer Prize winning play Proof by
David Auburn, which was developed at GSP during the 1999 Next Stage Series of new plays. In addition to its mainstage season, GSP's Touring Theatre features five issue-oriented productions that tour to more than 250 schools in the tri-state area, and are seen by more than 75,000 students annually.
George Street Playhouse programming is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and by funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. Continental Airlines is the official airline of
George Street Playhouse.
Photo credit: Adrienne Onofri
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