GLIMPSES OF THE MOON Announces Guest Stars
By: Faetra Petillo Oct. 24, 2008
GLIMPSES OF THE MOON is pleased to announce the following special guest stars have confirmed to appear Monday nights at 8pm in the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel.
November 10th & 17th – Lisa Asher
November 23rd – Jana Robbins
January 5th, 2009 and 12th, 2009 – KT Sullivan
TBD -- Robert Newman
GLIMPSES OF THE MOON, a Jazz Age musical with book & lyrics by Tajlei Levis and music by John Mercurio, choreographed by Denis Jones, and directed by Marc Bruni, premiered with a sold-out run in the Oak Room last winter. GLIMPSES OF THE MOON is back by popular demand for an ongoing run at Off-Broadway’s Oak Room in the Algonquin Hotel (59 West 44th Street, between 5th and 6th Ave.). Performances begin Sunday, October 26.
Hailed by critics and audiences in January 2008, GLIMPSES OF THE MOON is the first original musical created specifically for the intimate wood-paneled Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel.A sparkling romantic musical, GLIMPSES OF THE MOON is based on one of Edith Wharton's rare comedies. Set in 1922, an age of anything but innocence, GLIMPSES OF THE MOON follows the jazzy whirl of Manhattan society. With plenty of friends, but little money, Susy Branch and her friend Nick Lansing devise a clever scheme to live beyond their means. They'll marry and live off the wedding gifts, while they help one another trade up to suitable millionaires. The plan works perfectly – until they fall in love.BIOGRAPHIESLisa Asher has appeared as an actress and featured vocalist in numerous theatrical and concert venues around the country. Ms. Asher just returned from starring in a critically acclaimed production of Woody Guthrie's American Song at The Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Lisa appeared in the 2007 NYMF production of Austentatious. Lisa's performance was singled out in almost every review, including a very nice mention in The New York Times. Other roles include that of Bess Earp in the new musical I Married Wyatt Earp at Bristol Riverside Theatre, appearing in the world premiere of Almost Heaven, John Denver's America for the Tony Award Winning Denver Center Theater Company. She can also be heard on the original cast recording of Almost Heaven. Lisa toured nationally with the Broadway show The Who's Tommy and appeared in the Off-Broadway hit Woody Guthrie's American Song which received a Drama Desk Nomination for Best Musical. Lisa was featured in a concert tribute to Woody Guthrie produced by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame where she shared the stage with such rock and folk notables as Bruce Springsteen, Indigo Girls, Ani DeFranco, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. Other theatrical credits include: the dual roles of Minnie and Joan in the East Coast premiere of the musical Bingo at The Adirondack Theatre Festival; the role of Topeka in Christmas At The Swingtime Canteen (which required that she musical direct, sing, act and conduct while providing piano accompaniment for the show) at the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina; and, one of her favorite roles, that of Doatsey Mae in The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas in Chicago. Liz Larsen Broadway: Hairspray, Rocky Horror Show, The Smell of the Kill, The Most Happy Fella* (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominations, LA Dramalogue Award Best Featured Actress), Damn Yankees, A Little Night Music, Starmites*, Fiddler on the Roof, Blues in the Night, Annie, Dubarry was a Lady (City Center) Other New York shows: Such Good Friends (NYMF - Outstanding Performance Award), A New Brain*, Bingo*, Him and Her (Fringe excellence award-performance), New Yorkers, Loman Family Picnic, Personals, Little By Littler*. Road: Sunday in the Park (Helen Hayes Award Lead Actress), Baby (Helen Hayes Award nomination Featured Actress) Falsettos, Guys and Dolls, The Value of Names (with Jack Klugman), Annie Get Your Gun, Evita, Joseph....Dreamcoat. TV: Series Regular: “My Guys.” Recurring roles on: “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Third Watch.” Guest star: “Sopranos,” “Sex and the City,” “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” “Conviction,” “Deadline,” “The Street,” “Exiled (M.O.W.). Concerts and recordings: 20 different compilation recordings on the Varese Sarabande label, Oh! Kay, Broadway 1960, and Symphonic Pops Concerts all over the world from the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall to the Gothenberg Symphony, Sweden. *Original Cast Recordings. Jana Robbins has played leading roles on Broadway in Good News, I Love My Wife, Crimes of the Heart, Romance/Romance, Gypsy - playing Mazeppa (the bump it with a trumpet stripper) while standing by for Tyne Daly as Mama Rose (40 performances), and The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife where she covered both Linda Lavin (Valerie Harper) and Michele Lee. On the National Tour of Allergist’s Wife, Jana replaced Michele Lee and co-starred across the country opposite Valerie Harper. Other National Tours include Ethel in Footloose and Aldonza in Man of La Mancha with Jose Ferrer.Her long list of Off-Broadway and repertory credits include both straight plays and musicals. Some of her favorite roles have been, Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Lady in Orpheus Descending, Dr. Livingstone in Agnes of God, Rosie in Bye Bye Birdie, The Leader in Zorba, and most recently Bessie Berger in Awake and Sing at Arena Stage, just to name a few. Jana has guest starred on Cheers, Roseanne, Babylon 5, JAG, Law & Order, Law & Order -SVU and Criminal Intent. For the big screen, she recently filmed The Women (2008) written and directed by Diane English, starring Eva Mendez, Meg Ryan, and Annette Benning. Other film credits include The Last Days of Frankie the Fly with Dennis Hopper and Keifer Sutherland, Executive Target with Michael Madsen and Roy Schieder, and Haunted Heart with Olympia Dukakis.Jana’s own one-woman shows – One Hell of a Ride! (The Songs of Cy Coleman) and Gypsy in my Soul have played cabarets and theaters across the country. Her CD: “Jana Robbins – Face to Face” can be purchased at Footlight Records and online at CDBaby.com.Jana was also one of the producers of Little Women on Broadway starring Sutton Foster and Maureen McGovern, and the Off-Broadway musical, I Love You Because. Her latest musical, Unlock’d just won the “Best of the Fest” Award at The New York Musical Theater Festival 2007 and will play Ravinia this summer in Chicago. For more information go to: www.janarobbins.com KT Sullivan Broadway credits include The Three Penny Opera with Sting, the play Broadway directed by George Abbott, and the leading role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She also played feature roles in the national tour of Annie Get Your Gun as well as the workshop production of Easter Parade with Tommy Tune. Off-Broadway, KT appeared in Splendora and A My Name is Still Alice. With Mark Nadler she co-wrote and starred in American Rhapsody: George Gershwin to the World, receiving Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel nominations and winning the MAC Award for best musical revue. Her regional theatre credits include the Old Globe Theatre, Hartford Stage Company, Municipal Opera of St. Louis, Missouri Rep, Goodspeed Opera House, Paper Mill Playhouse and The Great Lakes Theater Festival, where her roles have ranged from Frances in Light Up The Sky and Carrie in Carousel to Meg in Brigadoon and Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday. KT has been featured several times at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, Lincoln Center and The Caramoor Festival. She has also performed at The Spoleto Festival, La Nouvelle Eve in Paris, The Chichester Festival in the U.K. and several times at The Adelaide Festival in Australia. Since 1992 KT for the past ten years has been a regular headliner at the Oak Room of New York’s Algonquin Hotel and just completed an engagement in her latest show” Autumn In New York” for which she received the most enthusiastic press. For several years has starred at the Sabarsky Café of the Neue Gallerie on Fifth Avenue and Live on the Park in London. She made her West End debut in Vienna to Weimar at London’s Jermyn Street Theatre in 2004 and has returned annually in Noel Coward and Irving Berlin revues. In addition, KT has recorded seven albums on the DRG label, including “Crazy World” (voted #1 in the vocals category of Tower Records’ Pulse Magazine) and “Live From Rainbow and Stars: The Songs of Bart Howard,” which won Backstage magazine’s Bistro Award. Her latest CD of the songs of Cole Porter with Mr. Nadler and saxophonist Loren Schoenberg was recorded last fall during an extended engagement at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia. On television, KT has guest starred on Police Squad, Night Court, Remington Steele, Hardcastle and McCormick, Cabaret 13 with Michael Feinstein and In Performance at the White House, with Mary Martin. Liza Minelli presented KT Sullivan with the Manhattan Association of Cabarets’ Outstanding Female Vocalist Award and Irish America Magazine named her one of its Top 100 Irish-Americans. On that note, KT is proud to be married to outstanding Irish American Steve Downey.Marc Bruni (Director) won the NYMF Directing Award for his production of Such Good Friends. He is currently the Associate Director of Legally Blonde (Bway and tour), appearing on MTV's “Search for Elle Woods”. He has been associated with Jerry Zaks, Kathleen Marshall, Walter Bobbie and Jerry Mitchell on twelve Broadway productions including Tony winning revivals of The Pajama Game and La Cage Aux Folles, Grease, High Fidelity, Wonderful Town, Sweet Charity, and Little Shop of Horrors (also staging the National Tour). Marc also stages Irving Berlin’s White Christmas annually for Walter Bobbie, this coming year on Broadway as well as in Detroit and St. Paul. He directed My One and Only and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers for the MUNY, and he has worked at City Center Encores! on No, No Nanette, Applause, Bye Bye Birdie, and 70, Girls, 70. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College. Sharon Carr, (Producer) reinventing herself in the new millennium, is now fulfilling a life-long passion to present live theater. She began in 2006 as Co-Producer of I Love You Because (winner Best Off-West End Musical 2007, London), followed by 10 months 'on the road' with GFour Productions as an independent Associate Producer, presenting RESPECT: A Musical Journey of Women in Cleveland (September 2006), Boston (October 2006) and Atlanta (March 2007) as well as Menopause the Musical in Minneapolis. In October 2006 she also produced the cabaret show: You Don’t Know Jac, starring Jac Huberman (Winner, 2006 Broadway Idol). Sharon is a Producing Associate on How The Grinch Stole Christmas (Holiday 2006, 2007), Legally Blonde (Spring, 2007) and Dirty Dancing (Toronto, Fall 2007 and the US Pre-Broadway Tour 2008-2009). She was an Associate Producer on Masked, off-Broadway (August 2007).Ms. Carr is stepping up this coming year as General Partner/Lead Producer on Idaho! A Comedy Musical Love Story (NYMF, Fall 2008) which she hopes to bring to Broadway -- and (along side Nelle Nugent/Foxboro, Inc.) on the upcoming revival of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (Broadway and US Tour, Fall 2009). Two projects in development: Mom Is Not My Real Name (based on music by Tina deVaron) and an animated film: a family musical comedy about the story of Purim: Queen Esther. TAJLEI LEVIS (Book & Lyrics) previously wrote book and lyrics for the musical A Time to be Born, based on Dawn Powell’s 1942 novel (with composer John Mercurio). A Time to be Born had a sold-out run at the Lucille Lortel Theatre as part of the 2006 New York International Fringe Festival. Tajlei is a graduate of Columbia College and NYU Law School. She was a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop and the Commercial Theatre Institute.JOHN MERCURIO (Music) is the recipient of an award from both the Jonathan Larson and the Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Musical Theater Foundation for his work in musical theatre. This past summer his musical Myth for which he wrote book, music and lyrics was developed at the Eugene O’Neill National Music Theater Conference where it received the Georgia Holof Award for lyric writing. He wrote the score and co-wrote the book to Diva Diaries, which ran for three months at the Lakeshore Theatre in Chicago. Before that, it played at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center and the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. With collaborator Tajlei Levis, he wrote Glimpses of the Moon as well as the music for A Time to Be Born, based on the novel by Dawn Powell, which played at the Lucille Lortel theatre as part of the New York Fringe Festival. This fall his musical Academy will be premiered at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre funded by a MacArthur grant. John also wrote the score for 1001 Nights (workshop at the George Street Theatre), The Riverhaven Book Club, (Lyric Theatre) and currently, the songs for the play Arturo’s Window, which tells the fascinating true New York story of John Jerome. John has also just finished his first young adult novel, “The Lost Place.”He received degrees from the Eastman School of Music and NYU and was a member of the BMI Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop. (www.johnmercurio.com)BRIERPATCH PRODUCTIONS (General Management) combines the expertise of Laura Janik Cronin and Scott Newsome.Laura Janik Cronin has over 12 years of theatrical management experience on and Off-Broadway, including The Lion King, Chicago, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, August: Osage County, November, The Look of Love, Jackie Mason: Prune Danish, Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, Triumph of Love, Hamlet with Ralph Fiennes, Beauty and the Beast, Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well...,Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell, 25 Questions For A Jewish Mother, Don’t Quit Your Night Job, and My Mother’s Italian, My Father’s Jewish and I’m in Therapy. Laura has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from Mount Holyoke College, and holds an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama.Scott Newsome has managed Off-Broadway productions for over eight years. His productions include Dinner With Friends, Menopause The Musical, Harmony (Broadway out of town), Once Around The Sun, I Love You Because, Shout! The Mod Musical, and My Mother’s Italian, My Father’s Jewish, and I’m In Therapy. Scott holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre from the University of Houston.
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