Prospect Theater Company (Cara Reichel, Producing Artistic Director / Melissa Huber, Managing Director) is proud to announce the events in its February IGNITE Concert Series, which showcases compelling new musical theater works in concert settings.
On Monday and Tuesday Feb. 3rd and 4th at 7:30pm at the Greenwich House Theater (27 Barrow Street), Prospect will present a concert of Paulo K Tiról's new song cycle, On This Side of the World, a collection of songs capturing voices from the Filipino immigrant experience in the United States. Stories of overseas workers, young lovers, and gossipy church ladies meet snapshots of undocumented immigrants, millennial princesses, and first-generation Americans.
The concert will feature encore performances by the original cast from the May 2019 premiere, and feature three new songs. The company includes Albert Guerzon (Escape to Margaritaville, Honeymoon in Vegas); Joanne Javien (Secret Garden at the Arden Theatre, Miss Saigon); Jaygee Macapugay (Soft Power, School of Rock, Prospect's Honor); Diane Phelan (Felix Starro, LCT's The King & I, Prospect's Honor); Michael Protacio (Out of The Eclipse, Cry Love); and Kevin Schuering (LCT's The King & I National Tour, Disney's Aladdin at Chicago Shakes). Directed by Noam Shapiro and music directed by Ian Miller, On this Side of the World was developed and originally presented by Three Hares, in Association with Access Theater. The concert is line produced by Rachel Nortz. For tickets ($35) and information, please visit www.ProspectTheater.org.
Prospect's 2020 Musical Theater Lab, MOVE MEANT, will have its culminating presentations Monday and Tuesday Feb. 17th and 18th at 7:00pm at The Ailey Citigroup Theater, The Joan Weill Center for Dance (405 West 55th St. at 9th Ave.) Prospect's annual Musical Theater Lab brings together 8 writing teams and 8 choreographers to generate an evening of original, ten-minute musicals inspired by social, political and artistic movements across history. Each original short work will include choreography as a central element in its storytelling.
Writers in the MOVE MEANT Lab, selected through an open application process, include: Marc Chan, Anderson Cook & Amanda D'Archangelis, Tia DeShazor & Derrick Byars, Mary Ann Frank & Andrew Levine, John Herin & Alden Terry, Christopher Inniss & Charles Inniss, Katelynn Kenney & Alex Parrish, and Meghan Torone & Kent Kim. The selected choreographers include Rodney A. Brown, Rachel Leigh Dolan, Eun Young Park, Kristen Brooks Sandler, Ginger Thatcher, Breton Tyner-Bryan, Tony Williams II, and Sidney Erik Wright. A full roster of lab artist bios are available on the Prospect website. Dev Bondarin is the director, and Abel Garriga music directs. The lab is line produced by Hayley Isaacson. For tickets ($25) and information, please visit www.ProspectTheater.org.
Rounding out the February line-up of IGNITE Series concert events is an encore presentation of Prospect's 2018 hit Off-Broadway musical, The Hello Girls, with music and lyrics by Peter Mills, and book by Peter Mills and Cara Reichel. This special, one-night-only concert reading will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 7:30pm at Peter Norton Symphony Space (2537 Broadway @ 95th St.). The performance features members of the 2018 original Off-Broadway cast. Full casting will be announced at a later date.
Featuring a critically-acclaimed score, The Hello Girls tells the story of the groundbreaking women who served as the first soldiers in the U.S. Army, during World War I. Prospect Theater Company's world premiere production at 59E59 Theaters received multiple 2019 Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award-nominations. The concert reading is directed by Cara Reichel, and is music directed by Ben Moss. For tickets ($35,$50) and more information please visit www.ProspectTheater.org.
Prospect Theater Company (founded in 1998) is dedicated to fostering and showcasing today's new voices shaping tomorrow's musicals. Over two decades, the company has fully produced 35 new 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 new musical theater in concert. In recognition of its enterprising and risk-taking new musical theater, the company received an OBIE Award grant, and its role as a community anchor for emerging artists that strengthens the quality, diversity, and dynamism of American theater was honored with a grant from the American Theatre Wing.
Recent productions include: the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award-nominated The Hello Girls (2018) by company founding artists Mills & Reichel; Kerrigan & Lowdermilk's The Mad Ones (2017); Milburn & Vigoda's Long Story Short (2015);Ryan Scott Oliver and Hunter Foster's Jasper in Deadland (2014); the Drama Desk nominated Tamar of the River (2013) by Joshua H. Cohen and Marisa Michelson; Carner & Gregor's Unlock'd (2013); Gordon Greenberg's revisal of Working (Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Ensemble, 2012) including new songs by Lin Manuel Miranda; Iron Curtain (2006, 2011) by Susan DiLallo, Peter Mills and Stephen Weiner; Elizabeth Lucas' re-imagining of Guettel's Myths and Hymns (2012); John Gregor's With Glee (2010); The Blue Flower (2008) by Jim Bauer and Ruth Bauer; Illyria (2002, 2008), and the Drama-Desk nominated The Pursuit of Persephone (2005).
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