Cast Announced for New Civil Rights Musical BRIDGES at The TimesCenter

Prospect Theater Company in association with Amas Musical Theatre will present a one-night-only concert presentation of Bridges: A New Musical on Saturday, June 17, 2017 at 8pm at The TimesCenter.

The cast of Bridges: A New Musical will feature a line-up of Broadway talent including Jill Abramowitz (It Shoulda Been You), DeMone (Ragtime), Tina Fabrique (Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk), Destinee Rea (Amelie), A. J. Shively (Bright Star), Charles E. Wallace (Amazing Grace), and Brynn Williams (13).

The company also will include Chadaé, A. L. Cook, Ben Gold, Zoe Himmel, Michael Holmes, Victoria Lanzillo, Zhailon Levingston, Chinua B. Payne, Brianna Reis, David Rogue, Cliff Sellers, Jason Veasey, Caleb Wnorowski, Simone Zamore and more to be announced.

Bridges: A New Musical explores the ongoing struggle for racial equality and gay rights in America through the eyes of a multiracial family from the years 1965 to 2008. In 1965 Selma, a young woman boldly joins a march to fight for her civil rights. Decades later, in 2008 Berkeley, another young woman faces her own battle for equality and LGBT rights. As their stories collide across time and distance, each must come to terms with who she is in the context of a changing and complicated world. Bridges: A New Musical is an empowering story that explores our country's past and present -- how far we've come, how far we have to go, and the bridges we must cross to get there.

Bridges: A New Musical was commissioned and premiered in 2016 by the Berkeley Playhouse and developed at the Village Theatre's 2015 Festival of New Musicals.

Bridges: A New Musical features book & lyrics by Cheryl L. Davis, who received the Kleban Prize as a librettist for her musical Barnstormer about Bessie Coleman, the first Black woman flyer. The show received a Jonathan Larson Award through the Lark Play Development Center. Bridges: A New Musical features music by Douglas J. Cohen, who won the Fred Ebb, Richard Rodgers, and Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Foundation Awards for No Way to Treat a Lady and The Gig. Cohen and Davis were recently honored with three San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award nominations including Best Musical and Best Score for the Berkeley Playhouse world premiere of Bridges: A New Musical.

The concert is directed by Jeffrey Page, the Emmy-nominated choreographer and the winner of the 2011 MTV "Best Choreography" VMA for Beyoncé's Who Run The World video. For over eight years, Page has been a part of Beyoncé's creative team and recently his work was featured on The Formation World Tour and HBO specials. He was also a featured choreographer on Fox Television's So You Think You Can Dance. Under Bill T. Jones, Page was part of the award-winning Broadway cast of Fela! Page worked alongside director Leigh Silverman and Tony Award-winning composer Jeanine Tesori to choreograph the hit Broadway musical Violet.Musical direction is by Darius Smith (Raisin at APAC, Futurity, Three Little Birds).

Launched in 2015, Prospect's IGNITE Series is an ongoing concert initiative at The TimesCenter, featuring today's new voices shaping tomorrow's musical theater. Reflecting Prospect's dedication to fostering and producing work by emerging artists, IGNITE Series programming will include premieres of original material by award-winning songwriters; cutting-edge creations straight from Prospect's annual Musical Theater Lab; concert presentations of musicals in development; and more.

Tickets ($20 - $40) are available by visiting www.ProspectTheater.org or by calling (212) 352-3101. The TimesCenter (www.TheTimesCenter.com) is located at 242 West 41st Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues, in the heart of NYC's Times Square District. The venue features a 378-seat auditorium with state-of-the-art lighting, sound, and video capability, and a Steinway Concert Grand Piano.

Amas Musical Theatre, now in its 48th year of continuous operation, is New York City's award-winning pioneer in diversity and multi-ethnic casting in the performing arts since 1968. Amas ("you love" in Latin) is devoted to the creation, development and professional production of new American musicals through the celebration of diversity and minority perspectives, the emergence of new artistic talent, and the training and encouragement of underserved young people in the New York area. In recent years, Amas has emerged as a leading not-for-profit laboratory for new musicals, the most recent being Broadway and the Bard, starring Len Cariou and Red Eye of Love, which was awarded the Joseph A. Callaway Award for Outstanding Choreography. Its production of The Other Josh Cohen received six 2013 Drama Desk nominations including Outstanding Musical, a 2013 Lucille Lortel nomination for Outstanding Musical, and a 2013 Off-Broadway Alliance nomination for Best New Musical. Other shows that Amas has developed include A Taste of Chocolate, Triassic Parq, The Countess of Storyville, Distant Thunder, Marry Harry, Me and Miss Monroe, Aesop & Company, Signs of Life, Wanda's World, Shout! The Mod Musical, Lone Star Love, From My Hometown, Zanna, Don't!, 4 Guys Named Jose and Stormy Weather: Reimagining Lena Horne. Amas education programs include the Rosetta LeNoire Musical Theatre Academy, Lens on Live Theatre and in-school theatre arts residencies designed in partnership with elementary, middle, and high schools.

Prospect Theater Company (founded in 1998) is dedicated to fostering and showcasing today's new voices shaping tomorrow's musicals. Since 2000, the company has fully produced more than 30 premiere musicals in New York City, in addition to new plays and numerous re-inventions of classic works. Reflecting its investment in the future of the field, Prospect leads a variety of developmental initiatives, including an annual Musical Theater Lab for emerging writers, and the IGNITE Series of concerts at the TimesCenter. In recognition of its enterprising and risk-taking new musical theater, the company received a 2016 OBIE Award grant. Their work as a community anchor for emerging artists that strengthens the quality, diversity, and dynamism of American theater was also honored with a 2013 National Theatre Company Grant from the American Theatre Wing.

Notable productions include: the Drama Desk Award-winning Working (2012), Death for Five Voices (2016), Long Story Short (2015), Jasper in Deadland (2014), the Drama-Desk nominated Tamar of the River (2013), Unlock'd(2013), Iron Curtain (2006, 2011), Myths and Hymns (2012), With Glee (2010), The Blue Flower (2008), Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge (2009), The Hidden Sky (2010), Illyria (2002, 2008), and the Drama-Desk nominated The Pursuit of Persephone (2005).

Poster design by michaelthomasholmes.com

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