Thank you very much to Eric Cole for pointing his interview with Malcolm out to me and for letting me publish it on this website! I really appreciate it.

Everyone please go check it out here. It is a very interesting read. We finally get news on Malcolm’s long planned CD, too!

How is Tony nominee/former Gainesville resident Malcolm Gets counting the days before his next film - the big-screen version of “Sex and the City” - hits screens this summer?

For starters, the multi-faceted, award-winning performer hopped a plane this week to return to Gainesville to perform in “An Evening with Malcolm Gets,” tonight’s fundraiser for the Gainesville Chamber Orchestra at the UF & Shands Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Institute.

Gets’ career on and Off Broadway in New York took off thanks to winning performances in such productions as “Amour,” for which he was nominated for a Tony, and in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” for which he won an Obie Award.

He also performed at Carnegie Hall in “Mostly Sondheim” with Barbara Cook,” and worked on NBC’s “Caroline in the City” for four years.

Gainesville audiences, however, will no doubt remember Gets as a local classical pianist (who studied with Chamber Orchestra co-founder Berniece Maskin) who also won acclaim as an charter member of the Hippodrome State Theatre.

Gets appeared in some 30 productions at the Hipp including “Little Shop of Horrors,” “A Chorus Line,” “Hair” and the production that really fueled his fire for the stage - “Amadeus.”

“What really changed for me was one of the co-founders (of the Hipp) decided to cast me as Mozart in ‘Amadeus,’ ” Gets says.

“And that’s part of what I will talk about in (tonight’s) show because the whole time when I was growing up, everybody thought I was going to be a concert pianist.

“And then I started to act in the theater, but in ‘Amadeus’ it all came together because it was my acting and piano playing and I played everything live.”

Though he was born in Chicago, Gets moved at age 6 to Gainesville where he grew up and attended Buchholz High School and the University of Florida before taking off on the journey that landed on the Great White Way and the silver screen.

At tonight’s fundraiser, he’ll sing with an accompanist in a cabaret-style show in an evening that will start with live and silent auctions featuring a four-day beachside retreat at Sea Colony, a gourmet dinner and a poster of the forthcoming “Sex and the City” film autographed by Gets.

In that film, Gets plays Sarah Jessica Parker’s real estate agent. And in an upcoming HBO movie, “Grey Gardens,” he’ll play Jessica Lange’s lover, who also happens to be a pianist.

For the lowdown on how he got to there from here, don’t miss tonight’s performance (details of which are on page 14-15).

“I wanted the show to be as personal as possible, because I was here for a number of years,” Gets says.

Fans of eclectic, cutting edge lyricism should catch Anne Feeney’s performance Saturday at the 2nd Street Bakery.

Billed as a “Pittsburgh-based agitator,” Feeney’s songs aim to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

Her path in the footsteps of such influences as Woody Guthrie has taken her not only to the frontlines of rallies, demonstrations and picket lines for some 35 years, but also to appear at such events as the 2004 March For Women’s Lives, in which she performed in front of 1.5 million.

And her song, “Have You Been to Jail for Justice?” is featured on

the Peter, Paul and Mary’s album, “In These Times,” as well as the group’s five CD boxed set, “Carry It On.”

Admission to Saturday’s performance is $10 advance, $12 at the door. Showtime is 8 p.m. at 2nd Street Bakery, 1511 NW 2nd St.

Source: Gainesville.com

I have to admit that I thought about letting this website go, I’d made a new layout last summer, but just couldn’t get myself up to add all the content to wordpress.
It took me almost 6 months to get my ass in gear. I don’t want to let this site go down the drain, so I added everything and am now finished!
I am very happy about it and hope that the visitors will be too. I am thinking about adding more content, making new screencaps and so on, but I’m moving in two weeks, so please be patient.

(Nikos Stage, Williamstown, Mass.; 172 seats; $39 top)
By FRANK RIZZO

A Williamstown Theater Festival presentation of a musical in two acts with book by Daniel Goldfarb, music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum. Directed by Christopher Ashley. Musical director, Vadim Feichtner. Choreography, Dan Knechtges.
Jack - Hunter Foster
Liberty - Kaitlin Hopkins
Wood - Adam Heller
Kate - Kate Reinders
Volere - Chauntee Schuler
Orlando - Malcolm Gets

If you’re aiming to have a swell party, it’s best to have a smart theme, appealing people and tasty goodies — all of which are lacking in the nervy, nasty and not-very-much-fun new musical “Party Come Here,” premiering at the Williamstown Theater Festival.The guest list for the production seems promising: performers Hunter Foster, Malcolm Gets, Kaitlin Hopkins and Kate Reinders; a talented composer (David Kirshenbaum); and a hot helmer fresh from spinning unlikely source material into theatrical gold (Christopher Ashley, who staged Broadway’s “Xanadu”).

But “Party Come Here” is an unlikable, schizophrenic mess. Book writer Daniel Goldfarb (”Modern Orthodox”) creates two disjointed, dispiriting storylines in a production that strains to be bright and funny but is neither.

Story centers on nebbishy Jack (Foster) who, somewhat improbably, is about to marry beautiful, Ayn Rand-loving Kate (Reinders). She pulls out of the wedding before the final pronouncement, not because she suddenly realizes she has nothing in common with her almost-mate but rather because she feels compelled to fly down to Rio to meet his father (Adam Heller), who abandoned the family years ago.

Once there Kate is immediately attracted to his gilt-encrusted, guilt-free life, which he shares with his Brazilian trophy wife, Volere (Chauntee Schuler).

When Volere and Jack discover dad and his future daughter-in-law in flagrante delicto, Volere summons help from Jesus — as well as Jack’s dry, self-obsessed Mom (Hopkins), who jets down from New York. The crisis also sends Jack back to the caves of Rio, where he had previously met (don’t ask) a hermit named Orlando (Gets), a 500-year-old Jew hiding from what he views as an anti-Semitic world.

The confusing and uncomfortable sense of the show is reflected in a song whose refrain goes “Everybody hates the Jews.” Is it satire, sincere or just a misguided exercise in bad taste as it puckishly recounts the history of persecution through the ages (with a solemn pause when it comes to the Holocaust before picking up the tempo again).

There’s occasional talk of the search for faith, magic and identity, but story, song and characters rarely come together to decide which tale to tell, what tone to take and what the show is all about.

Despite its cross-cultural nature, the evocation of Brazil remains painfully limited, stereotypical and smartass — and Jews don’t come off much better.

Kirshenbaum has a deft way with a tune, but his lyrical efforts are often spotty. There are a few isolated musical bright spots, such as “Volere’s Prayer,” an amusing duet of the devout and the detached, as well as “That’s What I Want,” Kate’s wicked song about the joys of selfishness. (Think Glinda, but without the fun.) There are some sweet melodies, too, but amid the smarm, they just don’t seem right.

Thanks to their surefire chops, Foster and Hopkins acquit themselves best. Gets forges gamely ahead in a role that is part fable, part shtick. Heller and Reinders are trapped as scuz and slut, respectively, while Schuler is a beauty but lacks the charisma, comic skills or vocal oomph to steal the show — something the audience is aching for someone, anyone to do.

Production values are spare, but the three-piece combo under musical director Vadim Feichtner and orchestrator Lynne Shankel are topnotch. Dan Knechtges’ choreography amounts to familiar Latin moves during set changes, led by a chorus quartet pretending there’s something onstage to party about. If only.

Sets, G.W. Mercier; costumes, David C. Woolard; lighting, Howell Binkley; sound, Jim van Bergen; orchestrations, Lynne Shankel; vocal arrangements, Carmel Dean; production stage manager, Gail Eve Malatesta. Opened, July 26, 2007. Reviewed July 27. Runs through Aug. 5. Running time: 1 HOUR, 50 MIN.
With: Jordan Barbour, Clifton Alphonzo Duncan, Kate Roberts, Sarah Turner
Musical numbers: “Miracles Happen,” “Making the Leap,” “That’s What I Want,” “The Party Come Here,” “Life Is a Coconut,” “The Boy Who Could Also Disappear,” “You’re a Jew,” “Fall in Deep,” “Volere’s Prayer,” “A Hymn for Ethel,” “In Rio,” “Everybody Hates,” “Woman on a Rampage,” “Come Out of Your Cave,” “Vision of Beauty,” “Give Me a Sign.”
Source: Variety.Com

Adam & Steve is hitting DVD August 8th. Raucously funny and sweetly romantic, Adam & Steve is a twisted, tender comedy that would surely make “John Waters cackle with glee” (L.A. Weekly). In the 1980s, Adam (writer/director Craig Chester) and Steve (Malcolm Gets, TV’s “Caroline in the City”) had a horrifically embarrassing one night stand. When they meet again years later, they fail to recognize each other and fall in love – as do their wisecracking best friends (Parker Posey, Superman Returns, Best in Show and Chris Kattan, TV’s “Saturday Night Live”). Honest, irreverent and a whole lot of fun, Adam & Steve is all about making love work – whatever the odds.

Technical Specs: Running Time: Approx. 99 Min.; 1.78 Anamorphic Widescreen; 5.1 Dolby Digital; USA; English (w/ optional English subtitles); Color; NTSC; Region:1

DVD Features: Commentary with Craig Chester, Malcolm Gets and producer George Bendele; The Making of Adam & Steve; Deleted Scenes with optional director’s commentary; Red Carpet Premiere featurette; “Learn the Battle Dance” featurette; Gag Reel

Source: MoviesOnline.Ca

Malcolm Gets, the versatile and energetic star of who will perform a solo concert at Birdland on June 13th, has a rather rare distinction under his belt. “It was my first time on Rosie (O’Donnell),” he elaborates, “when you could still do anything on her show. I was cutting up backstage, imitating Cher–next thing I knew, I was entering wearing a wig–which Rosie did not know about–a few moments later Cher returned to the stage–which neither of us knew about. Suffice to say, it was a blast, and was truly me at my most insane!” Gets, the star of The Apple Tree, Finian’s Rainbow, Amour, A New Brain, Hello Again and many other shows, went on to play piano for Cher on the show. Although the pop diva will most likely not be in attendance, Gets will also repeat the ivory-tinkling duties in his cabaret show (along with Larry Yerman), as well as singing a varied program of songs.

The Birdland show is part of the New Season of concerts with top Broadway performers and composers; it will benefit the Songbook Project, of which Gets, a member of its advisory panel, speaks highly. “It promotes the art of live performance, by taking performers like myself into the schools, community centers–venues away from the traditional cabaret rooms of New York–and hopefully find some new fans of more traditional Standard and Popular Music.” Standards and popular music will be side by side with showtunes and classical in the concert; Gets will perform songs by everyone from Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim and Charles Strouse to Hoagy Carmichael, Kenny Loggins and even Frederic Chopin.

“My evening will be very personal,” he explains, “examining my own introduction to music, mostly through my parents’ original cast albums.” Gets finds performing solo a very satisfying experience though completely different from playing a role in a show. “For me, the most effective cabaret evenings have been some of the most personal ones, where the performer is comfortable enough to simply be themselves.”

Indeed, he hasn’t forgotten about the performing-in-a-show thing, and he was showered with accolades for his recent triptych of turns in Encores!’ production of The Apple Tree with Kristin Chenoweth, who he affectionately refers to as “some new girl who should go far.” In the concert production, he played Adam (of “and Eve” fame), the exotic Captain Sanjar and the groovy Flip, and calls the show, “a blast–great material, fantastic director and an amazing conductor and orchestra.” He also speculates about a transfer. “There are rumors of a limited run next spring in Midtown…we’ll see.”

Gets will also be reprising his role as the leprechaun Og in the Westport County Playhouse’s production of Finian’s Rainbow, which opens on June 16th. Just as he did in the acclaimed Irish Rep production, he will co-star opposite Melissa Errico. “I’ve played the part 4 times now–crazy!” he laughs. He sees some similarities between himself and Og– “To ask if I am mischievous is the understatement of all time. In some ways playing the part just fosters an already too accessible part of me that needs no encouragement. I’ve slowed down a little–but not that much!”

Gets has also been busy in front of the camera. In the new comedy, Adam and Steve (which opens at Loew’s State Theatre in New York on June 11th) he co-stars with writer-director Craig Chester and indie queen Parker Posey. “I’m very happy to be associated with it,” he enthuses. Courtney Love also performs in the film, and when asked if he would ever want to do a musical with her, Gets says “How about a musical of The People vs. Larry Flynt? I bet Michael John (LaChiusa) would take a stab!”

In one of his earliest New York appearances–LaChiusa’s Hello Again at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theatre in 1993, Gets played the character of The Writer, and he also originated the role of children’s show songwriter Gordon Schwinn in William Finn’s A New Brain at the same theatre in 1998. The articulate Gets seems to have a flair for playing characters who either write or compose. He was Franklin Shepard in the York Theatre’s 1994 production of Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. Of Sondheim, he says “I would think Sondheim’s influence is large on most young composers…I do wonder though if anyone not writing in a traditional form is assumed to be influenced by Mr. Sondheim. I do know he has had enormous influence on me–seeing Sweeney Todd for the first time with my father is something I’ll never forget–my father actually purchased tickets to see the show a second time as we left the theater.”

Gets has other thoughts on the current state of Broadway, and when asked about his experiences with the romantic fable Amour, he bemoaned its inability to find an audience. “The experience was all things–wonderful and heartbreaking. It was a wonderful, delicate little show that absolutely deserved a life, but we are living in a very particular era on Broadway. The fact that Light In the Piazza is surviving is a miracle–I loved that show. Perhaps Broadway has always been this way, but it seems as though anything slightly experimental or subtle is not destined to survive right now. Don’t get me wrong, I love razmatazz, but I wish there was a place for a variety of shows. Amour will live on in regional productions, I’m sure of it.”

As for Gets’ musical theatre dream roles, he’d love to offer a different interpretation of Arthur in Camelot. “I never understand why Wort, the “boy king” is always played by Senior Actors–I think he should seem like a man-boy who is struggling to be King and be a husband.” Yet he doesn’t want to limit himself to revivals either, and says, “I look forward to the shows my friends will write–Michael John, Adam (Guettel), Jason (Robert Brown), Kirsten (Childs)–I love revivals, but there’s nothing like creating a new role.”

There can be little doubt that Gets will create many new roles in the future. In the meantime, this outspoken, witty and talented performer can be seen at Birdland on June 13th at 7 PM. “It will be interactive with the audience, so warm up!” he says in advance.

Source: BroadwayWorld.Com

Multi-talented Malcolm Gets co-stars in “Adam & Steve,” a title that may sound familiar, but which is actually a new movie comedy. Some, of course, might already have seen it at the Tribeca Film Festival (last April) or at various festivals around the world. “Making the film was as much fun as I’ve ever had,” says Gets. “It was an ideal situation. The script was very good, and everyone involved in a major capacity is a friend.”

Craig Chester, who also wrote and directed the film, plays Adam to Gets’ Steve. The title characters are gay men who meet in an ER and develop a relationship. Adam’s a birdwatcher-tour guide in Central Park; Steve’s a shrink. Their respective best friends are a formerly obese comic (Parker Posey) and a ladies man (Chris Kattan). Some time later, Adam and Steve realize that they had met years before during a traumatic one-night stand.

Filmed in a month’s time at the end of 2004, the comedy includes “one major dance number, a sort of parody of the gym dance from West Side Story. It’s a gay two-stepping sequence, very flamboyant. In another scene, I’m a go-go boy. Pretty early in the film, it’s revealed that my character started out as a dancer, but couldn’t deal with the instability.” For the flashback, Gets had to have hair-extensions added. “It took hours. It’s sort of Jon Bon Jovi, very long hair that’s below my hips.”

One morning, while Gets was having the extensions attached in a hair-and-makeup trailer, an elderly female extra in the picture came in and sat silently for about 45 minutes. “I’m there in my Daisy Dukes [the extremely brief cut-offs named after Catherine Bach’s character on “The Dukes of Hazard”], basically wearing nothing,” he remembers. “When I left, the lady asked someone, ‘Is this a porno film?’ [Laughs.]”

Last December, Gets co-starred with Mary Testa in a Sundance Film Institute workshop (at the White Oak in Yulee, Florida) of Doll, a new musical by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie (who wrote the score for Grey Gardens). He played painter Oskar Kokoschka, who had a relationship with Alma (widow of Gustav) Mahler. “I’ve worked with Mary eight or nine times. She’s so brilliant in character parts, and I look forward to the day someone lets her carry a show. In this, she finally got to be a leading lady. I told her that she made me want to be a director, just so I could direct her as Mama Rose.”

Gets’ directorial debut occurred in 2004 at NYU (where he occasionally teaches). “I co-directed She Loves Me, a perfect show, with Deborah Lapidus. Deb is a dear friend, and one of the best teachers I’ve ever known. I loved the [1993] Roundabout production, and we didn’t want to recreate that. We did it with the graduate program, which is not a musical program. Emily Swallow, who’s in Measure for Pleasure, played Amalia, and Manoel Felciano, who’s now in Sweeney Todd, was Kodaly. I wondered if it would be the point at which I fell into directing and performed less, but the opposite happened — it made me want to perform. [Laughs.]”

Among his recent credits: He played Og, the leprechaun, in a 2004 production of Finian’s Rainbow at the Irish Rep, and later at the Westport Country Playhouse. “Charlotte Moore [who directed] asked me to do it. I said, ‘You know, I’m six-feet tall.’ She said, ‘That’s okay; he’s growing.’ ‘And I’m 40 years old,’ I told her. Charlotte answered, ‘Og is 649.’ [Laughs.] Only an actor would know how to talk to another actor. It was a fantastic experience!”

And it reunited him with Amour co-star Melissa Errico. “We first met in Yale Drama School. I was in graduate school; Melissa was an undergrad. Later, we did one of the big workshops for Triumph of Love. I adore Melissa!” Last August, he played Mordred and Melissa, Guenevere, in a one-night gala performance of Camelot at the Hollywood Bowl.

“Melissa’s a good friend, and she was staying at my house in L.A. Her parents came out from New York. At a rehearsal, her father said, ‘She sounds fantastic,’ and her mother said, ‘I bet she’s pregnant.’ I thought that was an amazing mother-daughter bond. It turns out she was. Melissa’s daughter [with husband Patrick McEnroe] is due very soon.

“Recently, I played piano for one of the numbers at a concert that Melissa did, and we’re talking about doing some concerts in the future. We keep getting jobs together. I love it! She’s one of my favorite people.”

Barbara Cook is another close friend, as was the late Wally Harper. Gets met the singer “in a workshop of Sondheim songs, directed by James Lapine. It was his idea, but then Putting It Together came to Broadway, and it just wasn’t the time to do it.”

Gets knew Harper even before that. “Wally was so funny, so saucy.” He spoke at Harper’s memorial — “really a celebration of his life. It was for an invited audience, and we could barely get everyone in.

“I told a really filthy story. I had some reservations about telling it, but a friend said afterwards, ‘Wally wouldn’t have had it any other way.’ He touched so many lives. He was a great friend, a brilliant man. I’ve lost other friends, but Wally is someone I think about every day. He loved life, and I loved him.”

In February 2001, Gets performed at Carnegie Hall with Cook and Harper for a “Mostly Sondheim” concert, later released as a two-CD set on DRG. He says, “I’m a very lucky man.”

Last season, Gets co-starred with Kristin Chenoweth and Michael Cerveris in The Apple Tree at Encores! “Producers are ready to move it to Broadway,” he reveals. “It was delayed because Kristin was on ‘West Wing,’ but now that’s canceled. They’re talking about how many players they need in the orchestra. We should be on Broadway in the fall, or next spring.”

Born in Chicago, he was raised in Gainesville, FL. His parents, Terence and Lispeth Gets (who have been married 54 years), were born in London. The third of four children (his siblings are Eric, Allison, and Adrienne), the actor’s name was Hugh Malcolm Gerard Gets. He dropped the Hugh in third grade because kids made fun of the name. “Now I love it.” Growing up, he studied classical piano. “When I was in a talent show in second grade, everyone sang John Denver, or rock and roll; I played ‘If Ever I Would Leave You.’

“All of us in my family were involved in music,” he tells me. “The record cabinet was chock-full of Broadway shows. I grew up listening to Carousel, Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady. It had an impact on my life. There was a community theatre at the end of our street and one day, when I was 13, some friends got me into the cast of Annie Get Your Gun. That was it; I was hooked.” Skipping the eighth and twelfth grades, Gets began college at 16. In addition to acting, singing, dancing and playing piano, he’s a choreographer, vocal director, conductor and composer.

Thanks to “Caroline in the City” (the 1995-99 NBC sitcom on which he played caustic colorist Richard Karinsky), Gets has achieved the financial security to pursue theatre work with greater freedom. “It’s a much different experience now. I loved working on television, but I knew I wanted to come back to the stage.”

His favorite musical is Sunday in the Park with George. “I haven’t done much Sondheim. When I was 18, I played Hero [in Forum]. I was Franklin Shepard in [the 1994 York Theatre Company production of] Merrily We Roll Along [for which he won an Obie], and Bobby in Company [a 2001 Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera production]. Most of the Sondheim parts I want to play I have to grow into. [The Sondheim roles will still be around as Gets gets older.] I really want to do Frederik in [A Little] Night Music in a few more years.”

Other credits include Hello Again and A New Brain at Lincoln Center, Boys and Girls at Playwrights Horizons, Two Gentlemen of Verona (for which he also won an Obie) at the Delacorte, and a Roundabout production of The Moliere Comedies, with Brian Bedford, “the best Molière actor I’ve ever seen.”

Theatre fans can look forward to Malcolm Gets as Adam, opposite Kristin Chenoweth’s Eve, in The Apple Tree, while moviegoers enjoy him in “Adam & Steve,” wherein he’s Steve to Craig Chester’s Adam. “It’s a romantic comedy, and in a sly way, addresses a lot of issues. It’s about two men trying to overcome their fears of whatever — commitment, intimacy — and have a relationship. In this day and age, that’s a tall order.” A happy Malcolm Gets exclaims, “Finally, I’m the lead in a movie!”

Source: Playbill.com

The 14th Annual “A Night at Sardi’s” Alzheimer’s Association Benefit will be presented March 8 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA.

The annual fundraiser, created to honor the memory of the late playwright/director Abe Burrows, will feature selections from the Jule Styne musical Funny Girl.

Peter Gallagher will host the event, which will also boast the talents of Jason Alexander, Tishina Arnold, Kate Burton, Tisha Campbell-Martin, Michael Chiklis, Loretta Devine, Victor Garber, Malcolm Gets, Jill Hennessy, Lainie Kazan, Ricki Lake, Sharon Lawrence, Lorna Luft, Garry Marshall, Megan Mullally, Josh Radnor, Lea Thompson, Tracie Thoms, Chandra Wilson and Hattie Winston. Susan Dietz is producing the evening, which will feature musical direction by Harold Wheeler.

Funny Girl opened at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theatre on March 26, 1964, starring Barbra Streisand. Its Jule Styne-Bob Merrill score includes such tunes as “Sadie, Sadie,” “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” “I’m the Greatest Star,” “The Music That Makes Me Dance,” “Who Are You Now?” and the show’s anthem, “People.” Isobel Lennart wrote the book for the musical.

For ticket information call (310) 996-1188.

Proceeds from the evening will benefit the Alzheimer’s Association in Los Angeles. Visit www.alzla.org for more information.

Source: Playbill.com

More stars have been added to the line-up for the Third Annual Embrace! Concert to benefit the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which will be held Feb. 16 at the Westside Theatre.

Cady Huffman, Malcolm Gets and Rob Evan are the newest additions to the evening, which will also include the talents of the previously announced Jim Caruso, Jaclyn Neidenthal, Struan Erlenborn, Dean Armstrong, Will Chase, Mary Bond Davis, Maya Days, Natascia Diaz, Max von Essen, Darius de Haas, Cheyenne Jackson, Capathia Jenkins, Tony Vincent, Jason Wooten, Kate Pazakis, Ryan Leeds, Michael Cunio, Chelsea Krombach, Evan Andrews, Nick Cearley, Luke Hawkins and Andrew Ross.

The 7 PM concert, presented by Michele Helberg and Jamie McGonnigal, will be directed by McGonnigal and will feature musical direction by Mark Hartman. Seth Rudetsky will host.

The Matthew Shepard Foundation, according to a press statement, “carries out Matthew’s legacy by supporting educational projects, activities and documentaries that raise awareness of the issues involving discrimination and diversity. The Foundation’s goal is to educate and replace hate with understanding, acceptance and compassion.”

The Westside Theatre is located at 407 West 43rd Street. Tickets may be ordered by calling (646) 289-6864 or by visiting the www.MatthewShepard.org.

Source: Playbill.com

asting has been announced for Doll and Nobody’s Lunch, the two projects selected to be developed in the fourth annual Sundance Institute Theatre Lab at White Oak, Dec. 5-17.

Doll is a new musical by the creative team Michael Korie (lyricist and book writer) and Scott Frankel (composer); and Nobody’s Lunch is an ensemble piece created by and featuring the New York-based theatre company, The Civilians.

An extension of the Sundance Institute’s Utah-based Theatre Lab, the program at White Oak, in Yulee, FL, “supports company-created work and innovative musical theatre.”

Korie and Frankel were represented previously at Sundance with their musical Grey Gardens, written in collaboration with Doug Wright. It will have its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons this season.

Lonny Price will serve as director of Doll, set in 1914 Vienna, just prior to World War I. The musical “dramatizes the love affair between Alma Mahler and the painter Oskar Kokoschka. Their relationship resulted in one of the stranger entanglements of the 20th century: when Alma rejected the young artist, Kokoschka had a full sized doll created to take her place in his life.”

Doll “explores the theme of self-delusion in a world on the cusp of change when the Western dream started to disintegrate, unleashing the demons of two World Wars. The cycle of rebirth and destruction is symbolized by the eternal image of the waltz with which Doll begins and concludes.”

The Doll acting company will include Emily Skinner, Malcolm Gets, Brent Barrett, Mary Testa, Ruth Gottschall, Emily Rabon Hall, Alicia Irving, Steve Routman, Dan Sharkley and Marc Vietor. Lonny Price will direct and Andrew Gerle serves as the musical director. Jenn Rae Moore will stage manage.

Written and directed by Civilians’ artistic director Steven Cosson with songs by Michael Friedman, Nobody’s Lunch “is a dark ride through the landscape of American public culture. This latest creation from the Obie-winning company The Civilians asks the thorny question, ‘How do we know what we know when everyone in power seems to be lying?’…Delving into the politics of information, the company — in its singular signature style — conducted extensive interviews with subjects ranging from a policymaker at Homeland Security on the verge of a nervous breakdown to a plucky extraterrestrial (channeled by an equally funny human); from every Jessica Lynch in the phone book (who was willing to talk) to soldiers guarding the New York subway with unloaded weapons. Turning these interviews into a mercurial cabaret-play, a versatile cast inhabits an eccentric cast of characters, all taken from real life. We meet a soldier guarding Penn Station from terrorists, a world-famous conspiracy theorist and an escaped sex slave for the CIA. There are market researchers working to turn our innermost feelings into sales, and ordinary citizens trying their best to make some sort of sense of it all.”

Actors in Nobody’s Lunch include Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Matthew Dellapina, Lexy Fridell, Brad Heberlee, Daoud Heidami and Kaitlin Miller.

Other artistic collaborators in the mercurial cabaret-play include Andy Boroson (pianist), Karinne Keithley (choreographer) and Peter Morris (writer). Catherine Bloch will stage manage.

James Nicola, artistic director for New York Theatre Workshop, and Susan Booth, artistic director at the Alliance Theater, will provide critical feedback on the two projects at the conclusion of the Lab.

The Sundance Institute Theatre Laboratory at White Oak “offers theatre artists the time and support to rehearse, rewrite, and develop their work over a two week period.” Philip Himberg, producing artistic director of the Theatre Program, will oversee the Lab, along with an experienced team of professionals who assist the artists during each phase of development. Creative advisors include dramaturgs Janice Paran and Jocelyn Clarke.

Himberg said, “Steve Cosson has led his company, The Civilians, into national prominence with work which has previously explored such diverse topics as the wives of dictators and the Paris Commune. The Civilians joins a long line of ensemble-created theatre that Sundance has supported over two decades.”

“Our Utah-based summer Theatre Lab Program, now in its 28th season, continues to represent the broad landscape of theatre being created in this country today,” Himberg said in a statement. “The two projects invited to participate in our collaboration with White Oak are a reflection of this range and we are especially excited about the risk-taking nature of these independent theatre artists.”

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White Oak is located on a 7,500-acre property in Yulee, FL. It was conceived by Howard Gilman as a sanctuary for animals, and a place of peaceful yet productive retreat for the people and activities he cared about. In 1982, Gilman established the White Oak Conservation Center on the property for the conservation and propagation of threatened and endangered species. White Oak, which houses the Baryshnikov Dance Studio, has also hosted residencies by performing artists and dance companies; national and international conferences; and seminars and workshops directly related to the Foundation’s primary fields of interest: performing arts, wildlife conservation and cardiovascular research.

The Sundance Institute Theatre Program focuses on the support and development of new work for the stage. These activities take place at the annual Sundance Theatre Laboratory and the Sundance Playwright’s Retreat at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming. The Theatre Program identifies and assists emerging theatre artists, and contributes to the creative growth of established artists. Over 60 Sundance Theatre projects have gone on to productions at theatres across the United States, Mexico and Europe, in the last seven years. Some of the past projects that have been supported by the Sundance Institute Theatre Program include Moisés Kaufman’s The Laramie Project, Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas’ The Light in the Piazza, Lisa Kron’s Well, Dael Orlandersmith’s Yellowman, and Doug Wright’s I Am My Own Wife, which received the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as Tony for Best Play.

Source: Playbill