VOTES! Whatever They Cost!

There are two common ways to think of art: some consider it to be an expression of what is original and unusual in human thinking; Aristotle, on the other hand, argues that that art is ‘imitative,’ that is to say, representative of life. This imitative quality fascinates Aristotle. He devotes much of the Poetics to exploring the methods, significance, and consequences of this imitation of life. Aristotle concludes that art’s imitative tendencies are expressed in one of three ways: a poet attempts to portray our world as it is, as we think it is, or as it ought to be.

Feeling cynical about the politics of the 2016 Elections?

Here’s a little Rx from Dr. Muriel Shrunk…don’t miss my performance as the Jefferson’s family psychiatrist in…

VOTES

Extended Run!

Runs April 1st through May 22nd

Castillo Theatre

543 West 42nd Street • New York City • 212-941-5800

Tickets

Broadwayworld.com

It’s the eve of the 2016 election and America is hours away from choosing its first woman president. The former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State, Melanie Jefferson and her husband the former President William Jefferson, are ready to count the votes, when the arrival of an unexpected visitor threatens to disrupt everything. What happens next makes for an election eve unlike any other.

Votes questions the nature of feminism, of power and of the political game itself.  By turns dramatic and comedic, Votes draws on a 1999 musical The Last Temptation of William Jefferson, written in the wake of the infamous Monica Lewinsky scandal by Castillo’s late artistic director, Fred Newman and Grammy-nominated composer Annie Roboff. Seventeen years later, Jacqueline S. Salit takes Temptation and wraps a new story around it, examining the political and personal conflicts of the famous First Couple.

The Cast

Lisa Ann Wright-Mathews (Melanie Jefferson), Wayne Miller (William Jefferson), Debbie Buchsbaum (Vivian Traveler), Bryan Austermann (Brett), Frances McGarry (Dr. Muriel Shrunk), Art McFarland (Newscaster)

The Creative Team

Gabrielle L. Kurlander (Director), Mary Fridley (Assistant Director), David Belmont and Michael Walsh (Music Team), Lonné Morreton (Choreography), Kerry Gibbons (Costume Design), Nick Kolin (Lighting Design), Miguel Romero (Set Design), John Rankin III (Producer), Lindsay Bleile (Stage Manager), Joseph Spirito (Technical Director)

About the creators of Votes

Director Gabrielle L. Kurlander has been a member of the Castillo Theatre company since 1989. Her production of the musical Sally and Tom (The American Way) by Fred Newman and Annie Roboff, won five 2012 AUDELCO Awards, including an award for Outstanding Director of a Musical. Ms. Kurlander’s other directing credits include:  Clare Coss’s Dr. Du Bois and Miss Ovington (2014); Playing with Heiner Müller, winner of a 2011 AUDELCO Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance; Coming of Age in Korea (co-directed with Desmond Richardson); Still on the Corner; Billie and Malcolm: A Demonstration; Revising Germany; Lenin’s Breakdown; all by Fred Newman; The Task and Heiner Müller: A Man Without a Behind, by Heiner Müller; and Hot Snow by Laurence Holder. A longtime activist and non-profit leader, Ms. Kurlander is President and CEO of the All Stars Project.

Fred Newman was the artistic director and playwright-in-residence of the Castillo Theatre from 1989 until his retirement in 2005. He wrote 43 plays, including: Sally and Tom (The American Way), Billie & Malcolm: A Demonstration, Lenin’s Breakdown, Outing Wittgenstein, and Stealin’ Home. His play Satchel: A Requiem for Racism was co-produced by Castillo and the New Federal Theatre in 2008. In 2002, he wrote and directed the independent film Nothing Really Happens (Memories of Aging Strippers), which won several film festival awards. In addition to his theatrical work, he was an independent political pioneer, a social therapist and a philosopher. He was a co-founder of the All Stars Project, Inc.

Songs by Grammy-nominated composer Annie Roboff have been recorded by artists as diverse as Faith Hill, Whitney Houston, Bonnie Raitt, The Indigo Girls, Tim McGraw and The Dixie Chicks. With five #1 hits to her name, Ms. Roboff is considered one of the most important songwriters working today. Her songs appear on albums that have sold over forty-five million copies. Theatrically, Ms. Roboff collaborated with late Castillo artistic director Fred Newman on several political musicals, including Sally and Tom (The American Way) and Still on the Corner.

Playwright Jacqueline S. Salit has a 30-year history in independent and insurgent politics.  An agitator and “outsider” strategist, she managed Michael Bloomberg’s three successful mayoral campaigns on the Independence Party line and was a key figure in the longshot presidential bids of both Ross Perot and Lenora Fulani.  She is the author of Independents Rising: Outsider Movements, Third Parties and the Struggle for a Post-Partisan America (Palgrave Macmillan) and publishes regularly on the Huffington Post. Her theatrical credits include co-writing Crown Heights with Fred Newman and Dan Friedman (1998), and Newman’s Women (2012). She made her acting debut  in Sally and Tom (The American Way) in 2012.

Saturday,  April 2              7:30 pm

Sunday,  April 3                  2:00 pm

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Friday, April 22                    7:30 pm

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Sunday, April 24                    2:00 pm

Friday, April 29                     7:30 pm

Saturday, April 30                 7:30 pm

Sunday, May 1st                     2:00 pm

Friday, May 6                           7:30 pm

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Sunday, May 8                         2:00 pm

Friday, May 13                           7:30 pm

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Friday, May 20                           7:30 pm

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Sunday, May 22                          2:00 pm

Sound Bites 3.0 Festival 10 Musicals – One Night Only!

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Friend What Are You Waiting For?

I will be performing in the new musical comedy WE HAVE APPLES as the Nurse

January 18th 7 pm 47th Street Theater! It’s a 10-minute showcase that will be sure to please.  Hope you can make it!

Stay tuned for a First Online With Fran interview with Rachel Griffin. .

Jane, a quirky 18-year-old writer, has no choice but to admit herself to a psychiatric hospital when her depression (personified by a female actor) becomes more than she can handle on her own. Bored with the cheesy and condescending group sessions, Jane and another talented patient, Jack, start a writing group. Tension heightens between staff and patients and corruption and mistreatment in the ward start to make everyone wonder: who is really sane here after all?

Music, lyrics, and book by Rachel Ford Griffin

Directed by Branden Huldeen

Music Director/Additional Music Aron Accurso

Go to the We Have Apples show page

Subject: Friend what are you waiting for? 10 Musicals – One Night Only!

Good seats still available BUT HURRY, they’re going fast!
10 Musicals – One Night Only!

The 47th Street Theatre
304 West 47th Street off Eighth Avenue, NYC

www.TNNY.org

Click To BUY TICKETS NOW

Go to the SOUND BITES 3.0 Festival main page

The ten finalists, listed in alphabetical order, featured at this year’s Sound Bites are…

A Cappella Love

A Cappella Love, performed by eight triple-threat singers-actors-dancers (four men, four women) without instrumental accompaniment, is a new musical that, through song, dance, and comedy, explores the universal experiences of falling in, being in, and stumbling out of – what else? – love. The romance! The passion! The brazen innuendo…all a cappella!

music by Nelson Kole, lyrics by Mark Browning Milner, and book by Mark Browning Milner, Lorrie Kole, and Nelson Kole

Go to the A Cappella Love show page

Baked Goods

Gertie may be the worst girl scout the troop has ever seen. When her mother (who is also her troop leader) gives her the ultimatum of selling 100 boxes to continue her girl scout membership, Gertie does her best to rise to the occasion, with a little help from a new friend.

music by Helen Park, lyrics by Christyn Budzyna, and book by Charles Cohen

Go to the Baked Goods show page

Burning Up

A New York City couple awake one morning, burning up with fevers, while their babysitter and their handyman are sizzling with a fever of a different kind. Chaos and Kleenex reign, in this classic yet contemporary tale of love and flu-like symptoms.

music by Rick Bassett, lyrics by Pamela Weiler Grayson, and book by Pamela Weiler Grayson and Rick Bassett

Go to the Burning Up show page

Fictitious

Fictitious is a 90-minute musical comedy inspired by the life of Arnold Schwarzenegger that traces the unlikely success story of an immigrant bodybuilder turned actor turned politician who marries into America’s political royal family and eventually becomes president.

music, lyrics, and book by Paul Cozby and Tom Hyndman

Go to the Fictitious show Page

Gorgonzola

A progressive Sicilian town is thrown into turmoil when they discover they have a rule that the oldest person in town is always right

music by Nolan Livesay, book and lyrics by Gregory Bonsignore

Go to the Gorgonzola show page

Hipster Sister

Brooklyn, 2015. Chelsea is getting fed up with her slacker singer-songwriter sister, Jackie, and it’s time she moved out.

music, lyrics, and book by Andy Roninson

Go to The Hipster Sister show page

Houdin

Eric, a young, failed magician (circa 1902) barters his soul to travel back in time to Paris, circa 1880, to study with the great, Father of Magic, Eugene Robert-Houdin. Eric meets Houdin’s hiding, reclusive daughter, and love complications ensue. “Brigadoon” meets “Damn Yankees”.

music, lyrics, and book by Marcus Pelegrin, additional music by Gio Dormero

Go to the Houdin show page

On Your Mark!

A contemporary re-imagining of the Aesop Fable ‘The Tortoise and the Hare,’ this fun new show takes the familiar classic and exposes the truth behind this infamous woodland race.

music by Aaron Kenny, book and lyrics by Danny K. Bernstein

Go to the On Your Mark show page

Too Much Coffee Man Opera

Too Much Coffee Man Opera is a collaboration between Eisner Award winner and New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler and Emmy Award winning composer Daniel Steven Crafts, the first of what is now called Gonzo Opera. Too Much Coffee Man hangs around the coffee shop waxing prolific about life, love, the universe. Secretly in love with the barista, he has always been too shy to say anything to her. Today, however, he decides to throw caution to the wind…

music by Daniel Steven Crafts, book by Shannon Wheeler

Go to the Too Much Coffee Man Opera show page

We Have Apples

We Have Apples is a musical comedy set in a psychiatric hospital. Jane must overcome her depression (which is portrayed by another character) to be with the man she falls in love with, who happens to be her psychiatrist’s son.

music, lyrics, and book by Rachel Ford Griffin

Go to the We Have Apples show page

graphic design by Lauren Draper / illustrations by Carlos Zamora

Click To BUY TICKETS NOW

SOUND BITES is sponsored in part by…

Theatre Now New York is a professional theatre company whose history originates with two established companies: the Genesius Theatre Guild in New York City and ReVision Theatre in Asbury Park, NJ. Theatre Now New York brings together the founding principles of both these companies: developmental work and main stage theatrical productions.

The mission of Theatre Now New York is to facilitate the creation and development of new theatrical works, the reimagining of previously produced known titles and the reinterpretation of classic works through readings, productions, workshops and work-in-progress presentations and to promote the understanding and appreciation of live theatre and its process by the general public. TNNY provides opportunities for emerging, mid-career and established theatre professional in their ongoing creative process.

Theatre Now New York is a non-profit 501 (c)(3) organization and all donations are tax-deductible as allowed by law.

Members of Theatre Now New York receive 20% or more off all ticket purchases for a year, plus priority seating at productions and events, VIP invitations to special events and Members Only pre-sale opportunities on future events.