Dillie Keane to Close Out Brits Off Broadway with HELLO DILLIE

59E59 Theaters will welcome Dillie Keane (from Fascinating Aïda) back to Brits Off Broadway with the US premiere of HELLO DILLIE, written by Ms. Keane and Adèle Anderson, and directed by Simon Green and featuring Michael Roulston on piano. Produced by Pleasance Theatre Trust Ltd, HELLO DILLIE begins performances on Tuesday June 7 for a limited engagement through Sunday, July 3. Press opening is Tuesday, June 14 at 7:30 PM. The performance schedule is Tuesday - Thursday at 7:30 PM; Friday at 8:30 PM; Saturday at 2:30 PM & 8:30 PM; and Sunday at 3:30 PM. Performances are at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues). Tickets are $25 ($17.50 for 59E59 Members). To purchase tickets, call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 or visit www.59e59.org.

The incomparable Dillie Keane of Fascinating Aïda goes solo in NYC for the first time! Tender yet hilarious, melancholy yet furious, Dillie Keane's songs speak of a lifetime fully, if not always sensibly, lived. Wake up with Dillie the morning after a half-remembered night on the tiles, and settle in for her rowdy confessions of love, friendship and an addiction to psychics and crystal ball-gazers.

Brand new songs join grand old favorites; gorgeous songs of love join hilarious songs of disgraceful filth. Dillie will break your heart, mend it again and have it sent to the cleaners for pressing. And she'll give you her recipe for chutney while she's at it. "Keane is alternatively seductive, fed up, furious and gloriously content. It is just like life really. Except funnier." The Scotsman.

As part of Fascinating Aïda, Dillie has amassed over 17 million hits on YouTube for their charming and now infamous takes on a variety of topics from Cheap Flights to OFSTED to Dillie's notorious ode to dogging, which itself has reached 2 million hits so far.

Dillie Keane (performer and co-writer) studied music at Trinity College, Dublin, and acting at LAMDA. A burgeoning acting career was hijacked by the success of Fascinating Aïda, which started in 1983 in a wine bar in West Hampstead. When Adèle Anderson joined in 1984, she found her great writing partner. And when they persuaded the singing sensation Liza Pulman to work with them, they finally got the perfect trio. Dillie has tried to kill off Fascinating Aïda twice, but like the curse of the vampire, it comes back to haunt her again and again. The group hung up their sequins, ostensibly forever, in both 1989 and in 2004. Dillie has now given up giving up, and accepts defeat with resignation. She is secretly rather proud of their record - 8 West End runs, 7 albums, 5 continents, 5 nominations for best something or other in the UK and New York, 2 books, and 26 years. And, of course, countless songs. Currently, however, they are taking a break from performing together due to the ill-health of one of the trio.

Dillie has also written and performed in four solo shows: Single Again (1991 - nominated for a Perrier Award), Citizen Keane (1992), and Back with You (2001). Back with You toured the UK, played Pizza on the Park and the Edinburgh Festival, a West End season at the Arts Theatre and also played at Berlin's premier cabaret venue, the Bar Jeder Vernunft. Her new show, Hello, Dillie! toured the UK before arriving at 59E59 Theaters.

Acting parts include Dancing at Lughnasa (Tour) for which she was nominated for Best Actress in the Manchester Evening Standard Awards, The Plough and the Stars (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Juno and the Paycock (Leicester Haymarket); Present Laughter (Birmingham Rep); Charley's Aunt with Eric Sykes, and Frank And Dolly by Lizzie Hopley, for which she was nominated for Best Actress on the Edinburgh Fringe (The Stage).

Adèle Anderson (co-writer) is best known as a member of the acclaimed cabaret group Fascinating Aïda and co-writes much of their material with founder member Dillie Keane. Fascinating Aïda have played in more than 100 theatres in the UK and Ireland, with London seasons at the Donmar Warehouse, Lyric Hammersmith, Piccadilly, Vaudeville, Garrick, Apollo and Comedy theatres and the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. They have toured Australia three times, including a month at the Sydney Opera House, and also played New Zealand, San Francisco, New York, Berlin, Watamu (Kenya) and Singapore. They have made numerous television appearances and radio recordings, released seven CDs, two videos, an autobiography and a songbook. They have been nominated for the Perrier Award, the Olivier Award (three times) and the New York Drama Desk Award.

Her writing credits include many Fascinating Aïda lyrics. She was co-writer of Dillie Keane's three solo shows: Single Again, Citizen Keane and Back with You. She co-wrote the song "The English Lesson" (with Dillie Keane) for The Shakespeare Reveu (Vaudeville Theatre and World Tour). As a member of the Mercury Workshop she wrote (with Sarah Travis) a section of the collaborative musical The Challenge (Shaw Theatre). With Warren Wills, she co-wrote the Ninth Commandment for the Mercury Workshop's production of The Ten Commandments (The Place). She and Warren have performed jazz/cabaret together at Pizza on the Park and the Langham Hilton and also played the Hong Kong Fringe Festival. Adèle's debut solo album, Why try to change me now?, with Warren as Musical Director and containing original songs by herself (with Sarah Travis) and Warren, is available on the Dress Circle label.

Drama Desk Award-nominee Simon Green (director) returns to 59E59 to direct Hello Dillie, after successfully helming the productions of Café Society Swing, Cooking For Kings and Beau Brummel, Being Sellers, and Fascinating Aïda in Absolutely Fascinating for Brits Off Broadway's opening season in 2004. He was the consulting director for The Hired Man. Other directing credits include An Ideal Husband and An Inspector Calls (English Theatre, Frankfurt); Being Sellers (Waterloo East Theatre); Sing For Your Supper, Good Thing Going - A Sondheim Celebration and A Swell Party at the Cadogan Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Let's Misbehave, With A Song In My Heart, Let's Face the Music and Dance and The Way You Look Tonight at the Salisbury Playhouse. In London's West End he was the associate director of Auntie And Me starring Alan Davies and Margaret Tyzack (Wyndham's). Other plays include Split (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough) and for Cameron Macintosh he was the resident director of The Phantom Of The Opera (Manchester Opera House) and co-director of Time Of My Life (Bristol Old Vic).

As an actor, Simon is starring as Bernadette in the UK national tour of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Most recently he played Bruce Ismay in Titanic (Princess of Wales, Toronto and London's Southwark Playhouse). His London acting credits include three Sondheim original West End productions: Sunday in the Park with George (Menier Chocolate Factory/Wyndham's); Passion (Queen's); and Young Ben in Follies (Shaftesbury); also Sondheim at 80 for BBC Proms and The Phantom of the Opera 25th anniversary production (both Royal Albert Hall); Knight of the Burning Pestle (Barbican); Lumiere in Disney's Beauty and the Beast (Dominion); Whizzer in March of the Falsettos (Albery); Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens (Criterion); Coriolanus (Young Vic); Elmer Gantry (Gate);The Scarlet Pimpernel (Her Majesty's); Lady Be Good (Regent's Park); Tony in The Boyfriend (Old Vic and Albery); and for the RSC: Tin Man in The Wizard of OZ and Frank Schultz in Showboat (Palladium). Simon's cabarets, with musical director and arranger, David Shrubsole, are familiar in London's major cabaret venues and have played New York at Feinstein's, The Metropolitan Room, Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall and the 59E59 Theaters with Coward at Christmas and Travelling Light (Drama Desk Award nomination - Outstanding Musical Revue) and So, This Then Is Life. They have recorded two CDs, Take Me to the World and A Changing World - the words and music of Noel Coward.

To post a comment, you must register and login.