New England Entertainment Digest - Online
Brought to you by JAC Publishing & Promotions!

Long Wharf Theatre Announces Broadway Stars as Headliners for 2008 Gala

NEW HAVEN, CT: Long Wharf Theatre, under the leadership of Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein and Managing Director Joan Channick, is continuing its new tradition of getting top notch Broadway performers at its annual Gala, this year entitled Opening Doors.  Broadway veterans Emily Skinner and Lauren Kennedy will headline the annual Gala, which will take place on Thursday, June 5 at 5:30 p.m. Tickets start at $300.

Skinner, who won a Tony nomination for her performance in Side Show and appeared in Long Wharf Theatre’s 1998-99 production of Working, has been described by the New York press as magnetic, brilliant and ravishing. “Miss Skinner is a blissfully improbable hybrid of Merman and Dietrich, a steamroller vamp who sizzles and belts in one breath,” wrote Ben Brantley of the New York Times.   Liz Smith of the New York Post echoes Brantley’s thoughts. “Skinner is simply sublime … She seduces you in one minute and breaks your heart in the next,” Smith wrote. 

Lauren Kennedy comes with no less critical acclaim. Having made appearances as The Lady of the Lake in Spamalot and Fantine in Les Miserables, Kennedy has gained kudos as a star in the making. “Lauren Kennedy has a pretty voice and a lean and spiky physical allure that recalls the young Madeline Kahn’s,” wrote Brantley.  “Her singing rings out as clear as a fingernail flick on a crystal champagne glass. She is intoxicating in her range,” according to the New Jersey Star-Ledger.

Last year’s Gala, entitled Illumination, opened the backstage area of the theatre to the general public for the first time, shedding light into the corners of the theatre’s work and providing transparency to the process of creating art. This year builds on that theme – Long Wharf Theatre wants to continue to be a portal to new ideas, to delightful entertainment and to the community at large. In short, the name of the year’s Gala is meant to be taken quite literally.

“Anyone who attended Illumination will tell you about the excitement and uniquely creative elements of the event that both wowed guests and deepened their understanding of who we are and what we do. This year’s event celebrates the impact theatre, and Long Wharf Theatre in particular, has on our community and the doors that have opened over the last four decades,” said Christina Montanari, director of annual giving, and the producer of the gala event.

Long Wharf Theatre is pleased to have Matthew Broder, vice president of external relations for Pitney Bowes and Andrew P. Boone, financial advisor at UBS, serving as co-chairs of the Gala committee.

Opening Doors kicks off at 5:30 p.m. with a cocktail hour and a silent auction, followed by a performance by Emily Skinner and Lauren Kennedy at 7:00 p.m. The evening concludes with dinner and a silent auction. Tickets for Long Wharf Theatre’s 2008 Gala, Opening Doors, range from $300-$1000 and will be available for purchase by phone at 203-787-4282, and in person at the Long Wharf Theatre Box Office at 222 Sargent Drive beginning March 1, 2008.

For more information about the event, purchasing tickets and the silent auction, contact Christina Montanari at 203-772-8233 or christina.montanari@longwharf.org.

THE PERFORMERS

Emily Skinner recently starred on Broadway as Miss Mona in the Actor's Fund concert of The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas at the August Wilson Theater. She also starred in the original Broadway productions of Side Show (Tony nomination, Drama League Award), Jekyll & Hyde, James Joyce's The Dead, The Full Monty, and Dinner At Eight (Outer Critics Circle nomination). National Tour: Disney's On The Record. With City Center's Encores: No Strings, Pardon My English, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Broadway Bash. Off-Broadway: leading roles at the WPA Theater, Playwright's Horizons, Manhattan Theater Club, York Theater, The Paramount Theater at Madison Square Garden. Regional: multiple shows at The Kennedy Center, McCarter, Long Wharf, The Old Globe, Ford's Theater, St. Louis MUNY, TheaterVirginia. In concert she has appeared with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, Pittsburgh Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Jerusalem Symphony, Merkin Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Symphony Space. She has directed and performed in numerous Broadway By The Year concerts at Town Hall. Recordings: countless cast albums and audio books, “Duets”; “Unsuspecting Hearts”; “Skinner/Ripley Raw at Town Hall” (all with Alice Ripley); “Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens”; “The Stephen Sondheim Album”; “Wall to Wall Sondheim”; “Believe: The Songs of The Sherman Brothers”; “The Stephen Schwartz Album”, 20th Century Fox's animated feature Anastasia; and her self-titled solo CD (fynsworthalley.com).

Lauren Kennedy has had an extensive Broadway career, most recently appearing as The Lady of the Lake in Monty Python's Spamalot. She has also appeared in Les Misérables as Fantine, Sunset Boulevard, Side Show, and Cinderella at The New York City Opera. In London, Ms. Kennedy was in Trevor Nunn's revival of South Pacific as Nellie Forbush at The Royal National Theatre. Some of the new works and premieres Ms. Kennedy has appeared in include The Ten Commandments opposite Val Kilmer, Frank Wildhorn's Waiting For The Moon (Barrymore Award nomination), The Rhythm Club (Helen Hayes Awards nomination), Hot Shoe Shuffle, Irving Berlin's White Christmas, and The Last Five Years. She was in the First National Tour of Sunset Boulevard as Betty Schaefer and has performed in regional theatre as Florence Vassy in Chess (Alliance Theatre of Atlanta, Helen Hayes Center for the Performing Arts), Eva Peron in Evita (The North Carolina Theatre), and Sandy in Grease (St. Louis MUNY). Ms. Kennedy can be heard on the cast albums of South Pacific, I Sing!, Sunset Boulevard, Side Show, and Good News. Other CDs - This Ordinary Thursday, Strouse, Schwartz, and Schwartz, The Paul Simon Album, and Life Upon the Wicked S.T.A.G.E.. Her solo CD Lauren Kennedy: Songs Of Jason Robert Brown is receiving rave reviews and is available on PS Classics.

LONG WHARF THEATRE (Gordon Edelstein, Artistic Director, Joan Channick, Managing Director), now celebrating its 43rd season, is recognized as a leader in American theater, producing fresh and imaginative revivals of classics and modern plays, rediscoveries of neglected works and a variety of world and American premieres. More than 30 Long Wharf productions have transferred virtually intact to Broadway or Off-Broadway, some of which include last season’s Durango by Julia Cho, the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays Wit by Margaret Edson, The Shadow Box by Michael Cristofer and The Gin Game by D.L. Coburn. Long Wharf Theatre has received New York Drama Critics Awards, Obie Awards, the Margo Jefferson Award for Production of New Works, a Special Citation from the Outer Critics Circle and the Tony® Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.

www.LongWharf.org