Brooklyn:The Musical...coming to Bway next month!

[az-tec]

just wanted to let you all know about a new show coming to Broadway next month that my parents are involved with...

it is called 'Brooklyn' and is very similar in feel to 'Rent'...def geared towards a young and hip audience...

check out the info below

It is opening on October 21st and previews start Sept 23rd at the Plymouth Theater on West 45th street.

the website is www.brooklynthemusical.com

def go check it out

the star Eden Espinoza recently filled in for the lead of "Wicked" for a few weeks and got rave reviews...

heres a quick review from its run in Denver:

"Many a Broadway musical success has been built around just 3 or probably 4 hits. Brooklyn’s score already has 6 slam dunks… The song Once Upon A Time will become a Broadway standard…The audience stopped the show three times with standing ovations, not including a curtain call that felt more like a revival."

- The Denver Post

if anyone is interested in getting tickets...I have a special discout code for a nice price break let me know if your interested...

the press release is below:

BROOKLYN The Musical - Press Release

Featuring:

KEVIN ANDERSON

CLEAVANT DERRICKS

EDEN ESPINOSA

RAMONA KELLER

KAREN OLIVO

Book, Music & Lyrics by

MARK SCHOENFELD & BARRI McPHERSON

Direction & Musical Staging by JEFF CALHOUN

Music Supervision, Arrangements & Orchestrations by JOHN McDANIEL

Previews begin September 23rd, 2004

Opening on Thursday, October 21st, 2004

at the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway!

BROOKLYN The Musical announces the full company for the new Broadway musical beginning performances on Thursday, September 23rd, 2004 at the Plymouth Theatre (236 West 45th Street). The official opening is Thursday, October 21st, 2004.

BROOKLYN is a new Broadway production by Mark Schoenfeld and Barri McPherson with Direction and Musical Staging by Jeff Calhoun & Music Supervision, Arrangements and Orchestrations by John McDaniel.

The cast features Kevin Anderson (Taylor Collins), Cleavant Derricks (Street Singer), Eden Espinosa (Brooklyn), Ramona Keller (Paradice) and Karen Olivo (Faith).

The cast also includes Manoel Felciano, Caren Lyn Manuel, Julie Reiber, Horace V. Rogers, Haneefah Wood.

The design team includes: Ray Klausen (sets), Tobin Ost (costumes), Michael Gilliam (lights), Jonathan Deans and Peter Hylenski (sound).

From the heart of Brooklyn comes a band of soulful street-corner singers and storytellers. With a mix of pop and soul, they set their stage and tell a wondrous sidewalk fairy tale about a young girl searching for fame and the father she never knew. With just one clue to lead her, she lands in the city that bears her name… BROOKLYN.

Biographies:

JEFF CALHOUN (Director/Musical Staging) most recently received a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Direction of a Musical for the critically acclaimed production of Big River at the Roundabout Theatre Company. He also received an L.A. Ovation Award for best direction and choreography for Big River at the Mark Taper Forum and a Tony® Award nomination for Best Choreography for the revival of Grease.

JOHN McDANIEL (Music Supervisor/Arranger/Orchestrator) . Grammy® & Emmy® Award winner John McDaniel has a notable list of Broadway credits including Grease, Annie Get Your Gun,Taboo and Chicago and is best known as the bandleader and sidekick on “The Rosie O'Donnell Show.â€

MARK SCHOENFELD & BARRI McPHERSON (Book, Music & Lyrics). This production marks the Broadway debut for the writing collaboration ofMark Schoenfeld andBarri McPherson. Mark first met Barri in 1982 upon hearing her sing at a cabaret and hired her to record some of his music. Shortly thereafter, Barri moved to Massachusetts to raise a family. Years later, in 1991, Barri returned to New York to perform at a private-party gig. She involuntarily stopped at a remote street corner in Brooklyn Heights after hearing the sound of a voice she vaguely recognized. She discovered that Mark had become a homeless street performer, getting by on $40 a day. Barri invited Mark back to Massachusetts to stay with her husband and two children. Mark repaid Barri by developing music with and for her and soon, the street poet and cabaret singer had the skeleton of a most unusual new musical.

KEVIN ANDERSON (Taylor Collins). Broadway: Death of a Salesman (Tony® nomination), Orpheus Descending. NYC theatre: Speaking in Tongues, The Red Address, Brilliant Traces, Moonchildren, Orphans. London theatre: Dinner with Friends, Sunset Blvd, Orphans. Chicago theatre: Death of a Salesman, Earthly Possessions, Pal Joey, Orphans, Three Sisters, Twelfth Night, Our Town, One Shining Moment, The Fantasticks, Close Ties, Chanute. Stratford Shakespeare Festival: Two Gentlemen of Verona, King Henry, Part I. Film: Carrie Moon Beams, When Strangers Appear, Doe Boy, Gregory’s 2 Girls, A Thousand Acres, Eye of God, Firelight, The Night We Never Met, Rising Sun, Hoffa, Liebstraum, Sleeping with the Enemy, In Country, Miles From Home, Orphans, A Walk on the Moon, Risky Business. Television: “Skin,†“Power and Beauty,†“Monday Night Mayhem,†“Ruby’s Bucket of Blood,†“Hunt for the Unicorn Killer,†“Nothing Sacred,†“The Wrong Man,†“Orpheus Descending.â€

CLEAVANT DERRICKS (Street Singer). Broadway: Dreamgirls (Tony®, Drama Desk Award & L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award), Bob Fosse's Big Deal (Tony®, Drama Desk Award nominations), Your Arms Too Short to Box With God . L.A. Theatre: The Full Monty (NAACP Theatre Award - best actor). Film: Moscow on the Hudson , The Slugger's Wife, Offbeat, Carnival of Souls, Bluffing it, World Traveler. TV series regular: “Sliders,†“Thea,†“Drexell's Class,†“Good Sports,†“Woops!â€.

EDEN ESPINOSA (Brooklyn) began singing at the age of 3, performing at 5 and recording at 10 years old. She played both the roles of “Nessarose†and her sister, “Elphaba,†the Wicked Witch of the West on Broadway in Wicked. She has played the title role in Brooklyn since its first performance in workshop and at the Denver Civic Theater. Brooklyn marks her debut creating a role for Broadway.

RAMONA KELLER (Paradice). Originated the role of “Paradice†in Brooklyn at the Denver Civic Theatre. Broadway: Caroline, or Change; Smokey Joe’s Café; Buddy Holly Story. NYC theatre: A Good Man is Hard to Find, Beehive, Little Shop of Horrors, Dreamgirls. Recordings include: “It’s A Good Life.â€

KAREN OLIVO (Faith). Broadway: Rent (Mimi Marquez understudy) 1st National Tour: Mimi Marquez, Television: “As The World Turnsâ€. Karen attended CCM (Cincinnati Conservatory of Music) for Musical Theater and is proud to be back on Broadway with Brooklyn.

BROOKLYN Ticket and Performance Information:

Tickets are now available online at Telecharge.com/Brooklyn or by phone at (212) 239-6200; outside metro New York (800) 432-7250. Beginning September 2 nd tickets are available in person at the Plymouth Theatre box office (236 West 45th Street). Ticket prices range from $25.00 to $95.00.

Preview performance schedule (September 23rd – October 25th): Monday - Saturday at 8:00PM, matinee on Sat at 2:00PM.

Regular performance schedule (Beginning October 26th): Tuesday at 7:00PM, Wednesday-Saturday at 8:00PM, matinees on Wednesday and Saturday at 2:00PM and Sunday at 3:00PM.

BROOKLYN originally premiered at the New Denver Civic Theatre, on May 7th, 2003 for a six-week limited engagement.

[italianp7]

def.. wanna go... listen is there a differnce in the show if i go to the preview show oposed to the regualr performances.???????????

[sweetfun]

i'm going to go...could i get that special discout code? thanks!

[karisma]

Sounds like something I would want to see too... fill me in on the code as well az-tec!

[az-tec]

def.. wanna go... listen is there a differnce in the show if i go to the preview show oposed to the regualr performances.???????????

nah should be the same as far as I know.

Ill get the code later tonight and PM it to you guys

[smgarret]

nah should be the same as far as I know.

Ill get the code later tonight and PM it to you guys

Definately interested, sounds kinda cool

[italianp7]

pm me the code also hun.. Thanks

[dannyboy31]

Hi whats up can you please tell me the discount code for this play. I would love to get tix asap before it starts to sellout. please get back at me thanks D

[highmay]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/29/theater/newsandfeatures/29eden.html?hp

September 29, 2004

From Disneyland to Brooklyn, via Broadway

By ROBIN POGREBIN

Some might expect Eden Espinosa to play down that her road to Broadway lay through Los Angeles theme parks. At Disneyland, she portrayed Pocahontas and the Little Mermaid in stage shows. At Universal Studios Hollywood, she was featured in "Spiderman Rocks,'' not to mention the memorable "Beetlejuice's Rockin' Graveyard Revue.''

But Ms. Espinosa, who is starring in "Brooklyn, the Musical'' (now in previews), makes no apologies for her Mickey past.

"Disney was great for me," she said in a recent interview. "It kind of was my college." Ms. Espinosa never took any voice or acting lessons, but doing five or six half-hour stage shows - sometimes outdoors in cold, rainy weather - provided a kind of boot camp vocal training. "It's made me who I am," she said.

John McDaniel, music supervisor for "Brooklyn," said Ms. Espinosa's voice was unusually versatile. "She can growl notes way up high and she can float notes way up high," he said. "She sings with great soul."

He's not the only one who is impressed by what he's heard. When "Brooklyn" had its out-of-town tryout at the Denver Civic Theater last spring, Penny Parker of The Rocky Mountain News said that Ms. Espinosa had "perhaps the finest voice I've ever heard in musical theater." John Moore in The Denver Post wrote: "The youngster's future as a Broadway star is about as inevitable as stars on a clear spring night."

Ms. Espinosa got the part of Brooklyn - a Paris street singer who goes to New York City to find her father - after being called by a casting director to audition for the show's workshop at the Signature Theater in September 2002. "She opened her mouth, and I think she probably got the part in about five notes," Mr. McDaniel said. "With her particular innocence and clarity of voice and honesty, she became 'Brooklyn' right then and there."

But she started out as Anaheim. The granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, Ms. Espinosa, now 26, was a childhood ham, enlisting her little brother for her living room performances and directing her relatives when to applaud.

She sang in the large nondenominational church where her father, Eddie, was a pastor and wrote religious songs. Her grandmother, who has always spoken to Ms. Espinosa in Spanish (although Ms. Espinosa replies in English), took her to dinner theaters, opera and the Los Angeles "Nutcracker" every Christmas.

Her uncle was a Kid of the Kingdom in Disneyland's variety shows and would take Ms. Espinosa backstage when she was a child. (Her second cousin played Mickey Mouse and Minnie there.) Ms. Espinosa's first job, at 17, was as a Christmas caroler in a Disney parade called Christmas Fantasy. "It was a very big deal to me," she said.

But she had set her sights on New York City. "I've always just had a goal - this is what I want and that's what I'm going to get," Ms. Espinosa said. "When friends of mine are getting married or having kid No. 2, I sometimes wonder, 'Am I missing out on something?' But I always come back to the same place. No, I wouldn't have it any other way."

She arrived in 2002, facing the usual bumps: the smiles she had to force as a restaurant hostess, the rude shoppers she had to tolerate as a Gap saleswoman. She fled her first apartment in Astoria, Queens, after less than a week because of food-throwing neighbors and a sizeable resident insect, living next in a Midtown Manhattan apartment with four other people.

But the "Brooklyn'' workshop began to open doors. After that, Mr. McDaniel (also the former music director for "The Rosie O'Donnell Show") featured Ms. Espinosa in a program of songs at Joe's Pub, at the Public Theater, in February 2003. That spring he included Ms. Espinosa in "The Maury Yeston Songbook" CD, along with established performers like Betty Buckley, Alice Ripley and Sutton Foster.

Ms. Espinosa made her Broadway debut as the standby for Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West in the Broadway show "Wicked," performing the role for three weeks straight last summer when Idina Menzel took a leave to make a movie.

Given Ms. Espinosa's background in theme parks and church choirs, "Brooklyn" was unfamiliar territory. The musical, in which five street-corner performers tell a fairy tale, was written by Mark Schoenfeld, himself once a homeless street singer, and Barri McPherson, who discovered Mr. Schoenfeld performing in the subway and took him in.

"There is so much of New York in it," Ms. Espinosa said. "Some things needed to be explained to me."

Ms. Espinosa's inexperience made her just right for the part, Mr. McDaniel observed. "You just want to take care of her," he said.

Having been part of the musical since its inception, Ms. Espinosa helped create the role and feels partly responsible for how the show is received. "It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea," she said. "It's very balletic, it doesn't stop. There is no blackout into transition, no intermission. There's no automation, no dragon, no bells and whistles. It takes a lot of imagination. It's a fairy tale.''

Ms. Espinosa is also aware of her own fairy tale experience. "I like who I've become here," she said. "And I see who I've become when I go back home. I feel like I go back. I see where I would be if I never came. I'd still be at Disney, singing with a cover band and doing industrials and singing background tracks for friends who are pursuing recording careers."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[silverbull]

im down sounds very interesting indeed andy. Hopefully can check out the previews b4 they sell out. CODE please, hehe.

[az-tec]

werd

I actually just got home from seeing the preview and am pretty amazed...

the music was incredible and all 5 of the actors had some of the best voices I have ever heard.

I really think its going to do very well

[majinbuu]

please pm me the code and any other info...dates...times..whatever... thanks!