Photo Flash: Miracle and Staged! Present SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD

CAST
David Cole
Elizabeth Klinger (Member, Actors Equity Association)
Vin Shambry
Rebecca Teran

PRODUCTION TEAM
Jamie M. Rea ... Director
Eric Nordin ... Musical Director
Peter West ... Lighting Designer
Marit Estergreen ... Production Manager/Costume Designer
Elizabeth Hadley ... Stage Manager
Chanda Hall ... Co-Producer, Staged! Portland's Musical Theatre Series
Tim Krause ... Co-Producer, Miracle Theatre Group

ABOUT THE MUSICAL
Four actors, two musicians and a baby grand ... Miracle Theatre Group and Staged! Portland's Musical Theatre Series are collaborating to unplug the traditional summer musical in this intimate, acoustic presentation of Jason Robert Brown's off-Broadway hit. From a ledge 57 stories above Fifth Avenue to the deck of a 1492 Spanish sailing ship ... from a young man who hopes basketball is his ticket out of the ghetto to the wife of a certain North Pole resident who loves her husband but just can't face another Christmas alone ... it's the hard choices and startling discoveries we make at pivotal moments in life that drive the stories of this theatrical song cycle filled with love, laughter, adventure and, above all, passion for life.

A NOTE FROM THE COMPOSER ABOUT THE SHOW
Songs for a New World was meant to be a very personal little piece. I wrote it in tiny apartments and at open calls and tech rehearsals, and schemed and plotted and planned to get it on, and when it did finally get on, it did exactly what I expected it to do: sold about eight tickets and closed in three weeks. I know that what traditionally occurs is that little shows like Songs for a New World surface once and then disappear if they are not immediately embraced. But that didn't happen with this show: The production of Songs for a New World being presented here tonight is one of sixty licensed productions to occur in the last three years. The album has sold more than ten thousand copies around the world. The vocal score will be available worldwide within six months. I don't understand any of this. I'd like to think that it's because I'm such a genius, but you know, I doubt that that has a whole lot to do with it. I wrote these songs when I was struggling in a city that didn't even notice I was there, when I was a lonely and single college dropout living in a studio apartment in Greenwich Village, when I saw a great many people much older than I was and with a lot more talent who had ultimately had little or no luck doing the thing that mattered most to them. All of that is in here somewhere, and a whole lot more. And I think that all of that struggle and sweat and climbing and pushing is something that we all can understand, because we've probably all felt it in our bones at one point. Songs for a New World is a show that suggests that our best solution for the stress and terror and anxiety we feel is to come together and form a community that will support and uplift each other. So my very personal little piece has turned out to shine a little light on a whole lot of people. Hear my song - it's the one thing I have that has never let me down. Listen to the song that I sing and trust me: we'll be fine.
Jason Robert Brown
New York City, January 2001

ABOUT THE COMPOSER/LYRICIST
Jason Robert Brown has been hailed as "one of Broadway's smartest and most sophisticated songwriters since Stephen Sondheim" (Philadelphia Inquirer), and his "extraordinary, jubilant theater music " (Chicago Tribune) has been heard all over the world, whether in one of the hundreds of productions of his musicals every year or in his own incendiary live performances. The New York Times refers to Jason as "a leading member of a new generation of composers who embody high hopes for the American musical." Jason is the composer and lyricist of the musical, "The Last Five Years," which was cited as one of Time Magazine's 10 Best of 2001 and won Drama Desk Awards for Best Music and Best Lyrics. Jason won a 1999 Tony Award for his score to "Parade", a musical written with Alfred Uhry and directed by Harold Prince, which premiered at Lincoln Center Theatre in December 1998, and subsequently won both the Drama Desk and New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards for Best New Musical. "Parade" was also presented on a national tour in 2000, which Jason conducted. Jason's first musical, "Songs for a New World," a theatrical song cycle directed by Daisy Prince, played Off-Broadway at the WPA Theatre in the fall of 1995, and has since been seen in more than two hundred productions around the world. Jason's newest musical, "13," written with Dan Elish and directed by Todd Graff, premiered this January to rave reviews at Los Angeles's Mark Taper Forum, and opens on Broadway in the spring of 2008. Jason is the winner of the 2002 Kleban Award for Outstanding Lyrics and the 1996 Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Foundation Award for Musical Theatre. Jason's songs, including the cabaret standard "Stars and the Moon," have been performed and recorded by Audra McDonald, Betty Buckley, Karen Akers, Renée Fleming, Philip Quast, Jon Hendricks and many others.

Jason's first solo album, "Wearing Someone Else's Clothes," featuring his band The Caucasian Rhythm Kings, was named one of Amazon.com's best of 2005, and is available from Sh-K-Boom Records. His collaboration with singer Lauren Kennedy, "Songs of Jason Robert Brown," is available on PS Classics. Jason's piano sonata, "Mr. Broadway" was commissioned and premiered by Anthony De Mare at Carnegie Hall. Also in the wings: an musical adaptation of the 1992 film "Honeymoon in Vegas," in collaboration with screenwriter/director Andrew Bergman. Jason is also the composer of the incidental music for David Lindsay-Abaire's "Kimberly Akimbo" and "Fuddy Meers," Marsha Norman's "Last Dance," David Marshall Grant's "Current Events," Kenneth Lonergan's "The Waverly Gallery," and the Irish Repertory Theater's production of "Long Day's Journey Into Night," and he was a Tony Award nominee for his contributions to the score of "Urban Cowboy the Musical." His scores are published by Hal Leonard. Jason currently teaches musical theater performance and composition at the University of Southern California.

As a conductor and arranger, Jason's recent New York credits include "Urban Cowboy the Musical" on Broadway; Oliver Goldstick's play, "Dinah Was," directed by David Petrarca, at the Gramercy Theatre and on national tour; and William Finn's "A New Brain," directed by Graciela Daniele, at Lincoln Center Theater. Jason was the musical director of the pop vocal group, The Tonics, with whom he performed at the 1992 tribute to Stephen Sondheim at Carnegie Hall (recorded by RCA Victor); he was the conductor and orchestrator of Yoko Ono's musical, "New York Rock," at the WPA Theatre (on Capitol Records); and he orchestrated Andrew Lippa's "john and jen," Off-Broadway at Lamb's Theatre (Varese Sarabande). In 1994, Jason was the conductor and arranger of Michael John LaChiusa's "The Petrified Prince," directed by Harold Prince, at The Public Theatre. Additionally, Jason served as the orchestrator and arranger of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams's score for a proposed musical of "Star Wars." Jason also took over as musical director for the Off-Broadway hit "When Pigs Fly." Jason has conducted and created arrangements and orchestrations for Liza Minnelli, John Pizzarelli, Tovah Feldshuh, and Laurie Beechman, among many others.

Jason studied composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., with Samuel Adler, Christopher Rouse, and Joseph Schwantner. He now divides his time between Los Angeles, California and Spoleto, Italy. Jason is a proud member of the Dramatist's Guild and the American Federation of Musicians Local 802 & 47.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
It's all about the Journey. Jamie was raised in San Francisco, received her BA in Theatre Arts at Reed College here in Portland, studied the work Sanford Meisner & Robert Bray with Barry Hunt and the Sowelu Theatre Ensemble, Suzuki Technique and Anne Bogart's Viewpoints with the Siti Company in New York as well as Seattle's own Theatre Simple, Rhythm Tap with Savion Glover's teacher Lady Diane Walker & Lane Alexander of the National Tap Dance Festival in Chicago. She has directed for the Second Stage at the Santa Monica Playhouse in LA, directed & danced at The Body, a festival of dance and physical theatre in Christchurch, New Zealand where she had the pleasure of training with the Java Dance Company in Wellington, CircoArts (The Christchurch Polytech Institute of Technology's circus arts department) in Christchurch, & Te Ahikaaroa with whom she studied kapa haka, Maori cultural dance. She has Production Stage Managed & Designed in Australia, Directed & Designed in Canada, and Sound Designed in Ohio. She is a founding ensemble member of the Drunken Monkeys of Brooklyn Bay (Scott Kelman & Melanya Helene), with whom she has been training in Mindfulness-Based Improvisation since January 2005 and was a proud member of the original cast of the first complete presentation of Tao Soup; an artistic associate and administrator for Jewish Theatre Collaborative with whom she participated in the development and presentation of the world premiere of Sacha Reich's adaptation of Charlotte Salomon's Life or Theatre?; a member of Fuse Theatre Ensemble; and an associate artist with Sojourn Theatre with whom she has worked on the development of 12 original works over the last 8 years (including Cities on a Hill, Tartuffe, 7 Great Loves, The War Project, Witness Our Schools, Passing Glances, among others). Most recently she directed "The Devil and Billy Markham" by Shel Silverstein to critical acclaim for Curious Comedy Productions. Though previously seen at the Miracle Theatre in such favorites as References to Salvador Mali Make Me Hot and Lorca in a Green Dress, this is her first collaboration with either Staged or Milagro as a Director. Up Next, High Noon, adapted by Shmuel Vilozhny from the contemporary Israeli historical novel - I didn't Execute the Mission by Arieh Segev for the Israel Onstage series for JTC at Artist's Rep this July.

ABOUT THE MUSICAL DIRECTOR
Eric Nordin received his Bachelor of Arts in Piano Performance and Music Education from Southern Oregon University and his Master of Arts in Music Composition and Conducting from California State University, Chico. As a pianist and vocalist, he has worked the gamut of musical genres from jazz to classical, rock & roll to opera, and musical theater. He also is a self-published composer, writing for choir, jazz groups, symphonic band and piano. As a conductor, Eric has been the music director for over thirty musicals and operas, as well as having been assistant conductor for the North State Symphony in northern California under maestro Kyle Wiley-Pickett. Above all, teaching remains his underlying passion, having taught at a number of universities and community colleges, as well as children's theater camps, and musical theater and piano workshops.

ABOUT MIRACLE THEATRE GROUP
Miracle Theatre Group, the Northwest's premier Latino arts and culture organization for over 25 years, provides high-quality Latino theatre, arts and cultural experiences for urban and rural communities. Miracle merges the highest aesthetic ideals with social responsibility, illustrated by a long tradition of innovative programs serving diverse artists and audiences at El Centro Milagro, its home in Portland, Oregon, and through national tours. The Miracle Theatre Group is dedicated to the growth of a vital, diverse, exciting regional and national arts community and is proud to nurture emerging arts organizations such as Staged!. For more information about Miracle Theatre Group, visit www.milagro.org or call 503-236-7253.

Miracle Theatre Group
The Northwest's premier Latino arts and culture organization
OFFICE: 425 SE 6th Avenue
THEATRE: 525 SE Stark St.
Portland OR 97214
503-236-7253
www.milagro.org

ABOUT STAGED! PORTLAND'S MUSICAL THEATRE SERIES
Staged! is dedicated to the art of the musical - the marriage of story, song and movement. Staged! productions celebrate the creators of this art form: the lyricists, composers and book writers who craft the stories that make us burst out in song. Since bounding onto Portland's art scene in 2005, Staged! continues to delight audiences with stripped-down productions of complex musical theatre, focusing on musicians and actors telling stories together through song. Staged! is proud to be a Portland-based theatre company, producing stellar musical theatre, providing pre-professional training to young people, and nurturing talent. For more information about Staged!, visit www.stagedpdx.org or call 971-322-5723.

Staged!
Portland's Musical Theatre Series
1002 15th Street
Oregon City, OR 97045
971-322-5723
www.stagedpdx.org

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