Cast announced for Opera/Music Theatre's 'Songs for a New World'
Contact: Christina Chapple
9/12/06
HAMMOND – Southeastern Louisiana University’s Opera/Music Theatre Workshop has announced the cast for “Songs for a New World,” the workshop’s musical contribution to Fanfare, Southeastern’s annual October arts festival.
“Songs for a New World” will be staged Oct. 18-21 at 7:30 p.m. in the university’s Pottle Music Building Auditorium.
Charles Effler, director of the Opera/Music Theatre Workshop, said the Jason Roberts Brown musical review is written for four singers, but that he and director-choreographer Bradley Barrios have expanded the cast to nine.
Cast members are Betty Turner, Hammond; Sarah Kennemer and Skyler Stroup, Mandeville; Scott McDonough, Slidell; Travis Bush, Bogalusa; Christopher Giffin, Baton Rouge; Cali McQueen, Gonzales; Charlene Robinson, St. Rose; and Tiffany Henry, Jamaica.
“’Songs for a New World’ fuses pop, folk, rock, jazz, gospel, funk, and cabaret with sometimes dramatic and poignant, sometimes comic and delightful, but always theatrical lyrics,” Effler said. The revue, originally produced in 1995, preceded Brown's 1999 Tony award-wining “Parade” and his 2002 Off-Broadway show “The Last Five Years.”
The show, according to Brown, “is about one moment. It's about hitting the wall and having to make a choice, or take a stand, or turn around and go back. The moment you think you know where you stand, the things that you're sure of slip from your hand, and you're suddenly a stranger in some completely different land.”
Effler said the opening number of the show metaphorically describes “a new world.” “From there,” he said, “Brown transports the audience from the deck of a 1492 Spanish sailing ship to a ledge 57 stories above Fifth Avenue where they meet a startling array of characters. There is a young man who has decided that basketball is his ticket out of the ghetto, a woman whose dream of marrying rich nabs her the man of her dreams and a soulless marriage, a political prisoner begging to have his life back, and even the latest Mrs. Santa Claus. These are the stories and characters of today, the songs for a new world.”
Effler said patrons of the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts’ 2006-07 season will encounter Brown’s work again. He also contributed several original songs to the score of the Broadway show “Urban Cowboy: The Musical” which will be presented at the Columbia Theatre on Feb. 24.
Effler said that the show is rated “R” and contains adult language.
Tickets are $14, adults; and $10, senior citizens, Southeastern faculty, staff and alumni, and non-Southeastern students. Admission is free for Southeastern students with university I.D.
Tickets are available online at columbiatheatre.org and at the box office of the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts, 220 E. Thomas St. in downtown Hammond, from noon-5 p.m., weekdays and one hour before performance time. The box office can be contacted at (985) 543-4371.
The Opera/Music Theatre Workshop production of “Songs for a New World” is sponsored in part by the Southeastern Campus Activities Board. For more information, contact Effler at (985) 549-2249 or ceffler@selu.edu.
More News...
