| Benefit Concert of TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA to star Chuck Cooper, Taylor Iman Jones, André De Shields, Jin Ha, Coby Getzug, Alysha Umphress, more | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 09:48 am EST 11/10/24 | |
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| RED BULL THEATER Announces Cast for All-Star Revelation Benefit Concert of the Tony Award-Winning Best Musical TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA Music by Galt MacDermot Lyrics by John Guare Book by John Guare & Mel Shapiro Directed by Zi Alikhan Featuring Chuck Cooper, Coby Getzug, Jin Ha, Taylor Iman Jones, Kelvin Moon Loh, John-Michael Lyles, Alisa Melendez, Sam Simahk, Alysha Umphress, and More With Special Appearance by André De Shields Choreography by Karla Puno Garcia Costume Design by Lux Haac, Lighting Design by Paul Hudson, Sound Design by Peter Brucker, Projection Design by Nicholas Hussong, and Prop Design by Lauren Russell Musical Direction by Greg Pliska One Night Only: Monday, December 16th at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Symphony Space Tickets on Sale Now! RED BULL THEATER (Jesse Berger, Founder and Artistic Director; Martin Giannini, Executive Director) today announced details of a special highlight of the season: the one-night-only, all-star benefit performance of the award-winning musical Two Gentlemen of Verona. This one-night-only performance will take place Monday December 16th (7:30 PM) at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Symphony Space (2537 Broadway at 95th Street). This groundbreaking rock musical has a book by John Guare (The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation) and Mel Shapiro, lyrics by Mr. Guare, and music by Galt MacDermot (Hair). This concert event is a celebratory fundraiser for Red Bull Theater, the not-for-profit classical theater, supporting Off-Broadway productions, the award-winning Revelation Reading series, and education and accessibility programs including Shakespeare in Schools. Proceeds help to make all of its programs possible. Join special guests John Guare, Michael Cerveris, Manoel Felciano, Mary Testa, Sarin Monae West, and more for a fun-filled celebration! Tickets for this benefit event are now on sale, from $77 (service fees apply). To purchase tickets for this one-night-only event, visit redbulltheater.com/two-gentlemen-of-verona or call 212/864-5400. Featured in the cast, under the direction of Zi Alikhan, will be Chuck Cooper (Tony Award: The Life, Tony Award nomination: Trouble in Mind, Drama Desk Award nominations: Trouble in Mind, Choir Boy, The Piano Lesson; Outer Critics Circle Award nomination: Trouble in Mind; Lortel Award: Choir Boy); André De Shields (Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award: Hadestown; Drama Desk, Lortel, Drama League Award nominations: Black Nativity; Tony, Drama Desk nominations, Outer Critics Circle Award: The Full Monty; Tony nomination: Play On!; Audelco Lifetime Achievement Award), Coby Getzug (Broadway: Merrily We Roll Along, The Shark Is Broken, The Book of Mormon; The Band's Visit North American Tour), Jin Ha (Broadway: Hamilton, M. Butterfly; Here We Are - world premiere at The Shed; Road Show - City Center Encores!; A Little Night Music in Concert at Geffen Hall); Taylor Iman Jones (Broadway: Six, Groundhog Day, Head Over Heels; Hamilton national tour; Andy Sachs in the world-premiere of The Devil Wears Prada musical); Kelvin Moon Loh (Broadway: Beetlejuice, SpongeBob Squarepants, Side Show; The King and I - LCT; tick, tick...BOOM! – Kennedy Center; Here Lies Love - world premiere at Public Theater); John-Michael Lyles (Broadway: A Strange Loop, The Heart of Rock and Roll; Safety Not Guaranteed - Brooklyn Academy of Music; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - Barrow Street Theatre); Alisa Melendez (upcoming: Sophie in the Mamma Mia! 25th Anniversary Tour; Broadway: Almost Famous); Sam Simahk (Broadway: Into the Woods; See What I Wanna See - Out of the Box Theatrics; Gatsby: An American Myth - world premiere at American Repertory Theater); Alysha Umphress (Broadway: On the Town, Bring It On, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, American Idiot; Scotland, PA - Roundabout; Smokey Joe's Café - Lortel Award nomination, Stage 42); and more to be announced shortly. Two Gentlemen of Verona will have choreography by Karla Puno Garcia. The design team will include Lux Haac (costumes), Paul Hudson (lighting), Peter Brucker (sound), Nicholas Hussong (projections), and Lauren Russell (props). Greg Pliska will serve as Music Director. Based on William Shakespeare's comedy of the same name, Two Gentlemen of Verona tells the story of lifelong friends Proteus and Valentine, who leave their rural hometown to experience life in urban Milan. Valentine falls in love with Sylvia, whose father has betrothed her against her will to the wealthy but undesirable Thurio, and plots to win her hand. Disregarding his loyalty to Valentine and his hometown sweetheart, Julia, Proteus also sets his sights on Sylvia. He plans to expose his friend's intentions to her father, have Valentine banished from Milan, and claim her for himself. The original Broadway production won the 1972 Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical, beating out Follies, Grease, and Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death. It was nominated for eight Tony Awards, including Best Original Score. It also won seven Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Book, Lyrics and Music. "What I really love about Two Gentlemen is its simplicity. Beneath all the multicolored gimmicks and extravagances, there are real people living and loving, and this I find very moving," wrote Clive Barnes in The New York Times. "In 1971, in a spirit of love and jubilation, Mel Shapiro, Galt MacDermot and I wrote a musical version of Two Gentlemen of Verona to be performed in Central Park and on the gritty streets of New York. It moved indoors to the glitter of Broadway where it won the Tony for Best Musical. It's as much a love letter to Shakespeare as it is to New York," said Mr. Guare. "Our holiday concert event is going to lift the roof off Symphony Space with youthful exuberance and joy this December 16th!" added Mr. Berger. "With an incredible cast of Broadway veterans and thrilling young talent, we couldn't be more excited to share this revolutionary and joyful show from 1971 with a delightful contemporary spin under the exciting direction of Zi Alikahn. Full of love, laughter and joy, this will be a breath of fresh spring air as we head into winter!" said Jesse Berger, RBT Founder & Artistic Director. "This celebratory event explores the intersection of classical theater and the modern musical, and the enduring versatility of the stories at the heart of our mission. And it's a lot of fun! Join me and many other special guests Michael Cerveris, Manoel Felciano, Mary Testa, Sarin Monae West, and more for a fun-filled celebration!," said Martin Giannini, RBT Executive Director. ABOUT THE AUTHORS John Guare's plays include Lydie Breeze; Bosoms and Neglect; The House of Blue Leaves, which won an Obie and NY Drama Critics Circle Award for the Best American Play of 1970-71 and four Tonys in its 1986 Lincoln Center revival; and Six Degrees of Separation, which received the NY Drama Critics Circle Award in 1991 for its LCT production and the Olivier Best Play Award in 1993. Grove Press publishes Landscape of the Body and A Few Stout Individuals. He wrote the lyrics and co-authored the book for the 1972 Tony-winning Best Musical Two Gentlemen of Verona. His screenplay for Louis Malle's Atlantic City earned him an Oscar nomination. In 2003 he won the PEN/Laura Pels Master Dramatist Award; in 2004, the Gold Medal in Drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 2005 the Obie for sustained excellence. He is a council member of the Dramatists Guild and co-editor of The Lincoln Center Theater Review. Mel Shapiro's off-Broadway productions include the original staging of John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves, which won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best American Play in 1971, and Rachel Owen's The Karl Marx Play for American Place Theatre. London productions include the musicals Two Gentlemen of Verona and Kings and Clowns. For Broadway, Shapiro co-wrote the book (with Guare) and directed the 1971 musical adaptation of Two Gentlemen of Verona and directed the 1978 revival of Stop the World - I Want to Get Off with Sammy Davis, Jr. as well as John Guare's 1979 play Bosoms and Neglect. He has staged works at Lincoln Center, including Václav Havel's The Increased Difficulty of Concentration, which won an Obie Award for Best Foreign Play, and Shakespeare's Richard III. His relationship with Joseph Papp spanned six years at the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater. Among his productions there are Guare's Rich and Famous, Marco Polo Sings a Solo, and John Ford Noonan's Older People. Shapiro was one of the founding members of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and served as the head of the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. He was the head of graduate acting for the Theatre Department at UCLA. He has taught and directed at the Queensland University of Technology's Theatre School in Brisbane Australia, and the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney Australia. He has served on the boards of the Pittsburgh Public Theater, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, and the Fund for New American Plays at the Kennedy Center and Theatre of Latin America. Galt MacDermot (1928-2018), the two-time Grammy and Tony Award-winning composer, is best known for the Broadway scores of Hair and Two Gentlemen of Verona. He garnered his first Grammy for the song "African Waltz" in 1960. His work spans the gamut of performing arts: musicals, ballet scores, film scores, chamber music, Anglican liturgy, orchestral, poetry, drama accompaniments, band repertory, and opera. His work encompasses a wealth of musical genres, crossing the boundaries of jazz, folk, funk, gospel, reggae, and classical styles. The son of a Canadian diplomat, Galt was born and raised in Montreal. He received a Bachelor of Music from Cape Town University South Africa. Based on his traditional training, he wrote his own arrangements. He moved to New York in 1964 and, three years later, wrote the music for the landmark Broadway production Hair, which he later adapted for the screen. He formed the New Pulse Band in 1979, which features his original music played by some of the world's greatest musicians, including Bernard Purdie and Wilbur Bascomb. Galt's music is consistently sampled by hip hop and rap artists who find his rhythms perfect for setting their lyrics to, as in Run DMC's Grammy Award-winning "Down With The King" and Billboard's top chart-buster, "Woo-Hah!! Got You All In Check" by Busta Rhymes. Galt MacDermot wrote more than 3,000 songs over his lifetime. His music is listened to and enjoyed in 179 countries worldwide, and Hair has been performed constantly since its inception in over 40 countries worldwide. ABOUT THE DIRECTOR Zi Alikhan is a queer, first-generation South Asian-American, culturally Muslim theater director, educator, and leader. Recent honors: TCG Rising Leaders of Color, 2021. Upcoming directing: Snow in Midsummer at Classic Stage Company. Director (selected): Manik Choksi's The Ramayan (currently in development at Ars Nova), Ragtime (Playmakers Repertory Company), The Flick and Red Speedo (Juilliard), House of Joy (New York Stage and Film), Shabash! (LCT3), Lady Apsara (filmed for Prospect Theatre Company), The Wild Party (Yale), and Les Misérables (Pace). Resident Director: Hamilton (National Tour). Associate/Assistant Director: The Band's Visit (First National Tour), Six Degrees of Separation (Broadway), The Rose Tattoo (Williamstown and Broadway), Ripcord (Manhattan Theatre Club). Alum: Drama League Directors Project, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, Drama League Artist Residency Program, MTC Alper Directing Fellowship, Williamstown Directing Corps. Graduate: NYU/Tisch. Zi is currently the inaugural artistic directing fellow at Artists Repertory Theatre, where he serves as director of DNA: Oxygen, a new initiative dedicated to the development and production of new work generated by, led by, and featuring artists of color. ABOUT RED BULL THEATER Red Bull Theater, hailed as "the city's gutsiest classical theater" by Time Out New York, brings rarely seen classic plays to dynamic new life for contemporary audiences, uniting a respect for tradition with a modern sensibility. Named for the rowdy Jacobean playhouse that illegally performed plays in England during the years of Puritan rule, Red Bull Theater is New York City's home for dynamic performances of great plays that stand the test of time. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as its cornerstone, the company also produces new works that are in conversation with the classics. A home for artists, scholars, and students, Red Bull Theater delights and engages the intellect and imagination of audiences, and strives to make its work accessible, diverse, and welcoming to all. We value and practice inclusiveness, equity, and diversity in all of our activities, and are committed to antiracist action. Red Bull Theater believes in the power of great classic stories and plays of heightened language to deepen our understanding of the human condition, in the special ability of live theater to create unique, collective experiences, and in the timeless capacity of classical theater to illuminate the events of our times. Variety agreed, hailing Red Bull's work as: "Proof that classical theater can still be surprising after hundreds of years." Since its debut in 2003 with a production of Shakespeare's Pericles starring Daniel Breaker, Red Bull Theater has served adventurous theatergoers with Off-Broadway productions, Revelation Readings, and the annual Short New Play Festival. The company also offers outreach programs including Shakespeare in Schools bringing professional actors and teaching artists into public school classrooms; Bull Sessions, free post-play discussions with top scholars; and Classical Acting Intensives led by veteran theater professionals. During the pandemic, Red Bull created several new and ongoing programs to serve audiences and artists with our mission: RemarkaBULL Podversations, Online Readings, Seminars, and more. "The classics-shaking Red Bull Theater," as Time Out NY called it, has produced 24 Off-Broadway productions and over 200 Revelation Readings of rarely seen classics, serving a community of more than 5,000 artists and providing quality artistic programming to an audience of over 65,000. The company's unique programming has received ongoing critical acclaim and has been recognized with Lortel, Drama Desk, Drama League, Callaway, Off-Broadway Alliance, and OBIE nominations and awards. For more information about the Two Gentlemen of Verona, or any of Red Bull Theater's programs, visit www.redbulltheater.com. |
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