Today Keen announced the cast for the fourth musical, the first NY revival of Adam Gwon's acclaimed Ordinary Days: Whitney Bashor (The Bridges of Madison County), Marc delaCruz (If/Then), Sarah Lynn Marion (2013 Jimmy awards winner), and Kyle Sherman (Pete the Cat) will star.
Ordinary Days will have new orchestrations especially created for Keen by Bruce Coughlin (Tony Award® and Drama Desk Award winner for The Light in the Piazza; Tony Award® nominations for Grey Gardens and Urinetown; numerous Drama Desk Award nominations including War Paint, Giant, Grey Gardens, Urinetown, The Sound of Music, and Floyd Collins). John Bell (On the Town, Fiddler on the Roof, Keen's Marry Me A Little) will serve as Musical Director. Ordinary Days will have scenic design by Steven Kemp, costume design by Jennifer Paar, lighting design by Anshuman Bhatia, and sound design by Alex Hawthorn.
"I am so thrilled to start rehearsals for our revival of Adam Gwon's Ordinary Days with this wonderfully talented cast. Adam writes complex and distinctive characters and each of these actors bring their own unique gifts to his work. I am also eagerly anticipating getting back in the room with John Bell, my friend and colleague who was an integral part to creating our beautiful production of Marry Me a Little. And adding the gifted Bruce Coughlin into the mix to create new orchestrations will ensure our production will be a truly original version of Adam's gorgeous musical."
From the company that brought the acclaimed revivals of Marry Me a Little, John and Jen,and Tick, Tick...BOOM! comes Adam Gwon's Ordinary Days, a refreshingly humorous and inspiring musical about making simple connections in a chaotic city. Written by one of musical theater's most exciting new composers, Ordinary Days tells the story of four young New Yorkers whose lives intersect in unexpected ways as they search for success, happiness, love, and taxis. Peter Marks in The Washington Post declared "If life really were more like a musical, you'd be contented if that life percolated as vibrantly as doesOrdinary Days, Adam Gwon's sweet, fleet and tender survey of four youngish New Yorkers, fighting through the emotional noise and dramatic traffic to arrive at a clearer sense of who they are and what they want to be. It's a beguiling little tale, set to Gwon's effervescent, urban-romantic melodies... Gwon's 19 songs are the evening's sole engine. They're lyrically witty and rich enough in narrative and character detail to power the dual plots of the musical. It's the kind of unadorned musical that feels like such a fresh alternative to most of the overproduced stuff on Broadway."
Whitney Bashor appeared on Broadway in The Bridges of Madison County, garnering the Clarence Derwent Award. National Tour: Whistle Down the Wind. Off-Broadway: The Fantasticks, Himself and Nora. Regional: The Bridges of Madison County (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Beaches (Drury Lane Theatre), Merrily We Roll Along (Wallis Annenberg Theatre: LA Ovation Nominee), Fly By Night (Dallas Theatre Center), Light in the Piazza (Philadelphia Theatre Company: Barrymore Award Winner), Unsinkable Molly Brown (St Louis MUNY), Diner (Signature Theatre), Edges (Original Company; Capital Repertory Theatre). Concerts: Boston Pops (Tanglewood, Ted Sperling), An Evening of Music with Marvin Hamlisch (Library of Congress, Ted Sperling), Adam Guettel (54 Below), Jason Robert Brown (54 Below). TV: "Law & Order SVU", "Boardwalk Empire", "Love Monkey", "All My Children". Film: Off the Black. BFA University of Michigan. Follow @bashorw on Instagram.
Marc delaCruz: Broadway: If/Then. Off-Broadway/New York: Three Days to See(Transport Group), Pacific Overtures (Classic Stage Company), Prison Dancer (NYMF),Oklahoma! (National Asian Artists Project). Tour/International: If/Then (David), Where Elephants Weep, The Wedding Banquet, Disney's High School Musical. Regional:Vietgone (Quang, Studio Theatre), Next to Normal (Dan, Tantrum Theater), Allegiance(The Old Globe), work with San Jose Rep, North Carolina Theatre, ReAct, Northwest Asian American Theatre, the 5th Avenue Theatre, and Village Theatre.
Sarah Lynn Marion is making her New York debut. Last summer she was seen in All Shook Up at The MUNY. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan with a BFA in Musical Theatre, where her credits included Ursula in Disney's The Little Mermaid and Daniel in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised]. First Place Musical Theatre Pre-Professional Division for the Classical Singer Vocal Competition and winner of the Jimmy Award, the Jerry Herman Award, and the JRAY for High School Musical Theatre.
Kyle Sherman is making his Theatre Row and Keen Company debut. Recent credits include Off-Broadway's Pete the Cat (Pete), For the Record: The Brat Pack (The Geek),From Pilgrim Landing (Jacob), Rosie Revere (Iggy Peck), as well as concert appearances at Feinstein's/54 Below. Kyle is a Graduate of Northwestern University. Follow @kshermanatorr on Instagram and Twitter.
Adam Gwon is an award-winning composer and lyricist whose musicals have been produced on five continents, in more than half a dozen languages. Off-Broadway: Ordinary Days (Roundabout), Old Jews Telling Jokes (Westside Theatre); Regional: String (Village Theatre), Cake Off (Signature Theatre, Helen Hayes Award nomination; Bucks County Playhouse), Cloudlands (South Coast Rep), The Boy Detective Fails (Signature Theatre),Bernice Bobs Her Hair (Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma); West End: Ordinary Days (Trafalgar Studios). Adam's songs have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and more, by such luminaries as Audra McDonald, Kelli O'Hara, and Brian d'Arcy James. Honors include the Kleban Award, Fred Ebb Award, Richard Rodgers Award, Frederick Loewe Award, Second Stage Theatre's Donna Perret Rosen Award, Weston Playhouse New Musical Award, ASCAP Harold Adamson Award, and the MAC John Wallowitch Award, as well as commissions from Roundabout, Playwrights Horizons, Signature Theatre, South Coast Rep, and Broadway Across America. Recordings include:Ordinary Days (Ghostlight Records), Audra McDonald's Go Back Home (Nonesuch), The Essential Liz Callaway (Working Girl Records), Tracy Lynn Olivera's Because, and Over the Moon: The Broadway Lullaby Album. Adam has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, the O'Neill Music Theater Conference, and the Dramatists Guild.
Performances for this limited Off-Broadway engagement of Ordinary Days, directed by Keen Artistic Director Jonathan Silverstein, will begin Tuesday, October 2nd, and continue through November 17th only, with opening night set for Wednesday, October 17th. Additional matinees on Wednesdays November 7th and November 14th at 2pm.
Coming this Spring to Keen: the Off-Broadway premiere of Surely Goodness and Mercybeginning February 27th and continuing through April 14th only, with opening night set for March 13th. Cast and design team will be announced shortly.
Keen Company creates theater that provokes identification, reflection, and emotional connection. In intimate productions of plays and musicals, we tell wholehearted stories about people striving to do their best and the decisive moments that change us. Keen has been honored with eleven Drama Desk nominations, two Drama Desk Awards, two Drama League nominations, and two Obie Awards.
All performances will be at Theatre Row, a program of Building for the Arts NY Inc., (410 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues) and will be Tuesday through Thursday evenings at 7pm; Fridays at 8pm; Saturdays at 2pm & 8pm; and Sunday matinees at 3pm. Tickets for Ordinary Days will be $75; premium tickets will be $90. (All ticket prices include restoration fees.) Tickets for the first performance only on Tuesday October 2nd will be $25.
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Individual tickets and subscriptions are on sale NOW! To purchase single tickets, visit the Theatre Row Box Office (410 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues), online at Telecharge.com, or call 212-239-6200. For subscriptions, please visit www.keencompany.org/subscribe.
For more information, visit www.keencompany.org
Photo Credit: Genevieve Rafter-Keddy
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