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Eugene Barry-Hill
Eugene
Broadway: The Lion King (original cast). National Tours: Ain’t Misbehavin’ with the Pointer Sisters, Miss Saigon (John), Jesus Christ Superstar (with Carl Anderson). Regional: Ragtime (Coalhouse/San Diego CLO Starlight), The Full Monty (Musical Theatre West/Long Beach), Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Arizona Theatre Company), Smokey Joe’s Café (Fullerton CLO), Two Gentlemen of Verona (Valentine/American Musical Theatre of SJ), A Blast From The Past (Las Vegas/Atlantic City), Kiss Me, Kate! (with Harve Presnell). Los Angeles: Sister Act, The Musical (Workshop/Pasadena Playhouse), Gladiator, The Musical (Workshop-Juba/El Portal Theatre, L.A.), A Tribute to Berry Gordy. Dedicated to Mom and Timothy. |
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Doug Eskew
Doug
Broadway/Off-Broadway: The Color Purple, Five Guys Named Moe, Truly Blessed, Thunder Knocking on the Door, Josephine Song. National Tours: The Color Purple, Five Guys Named Moe, Cats, Dreamgirls, Ain’t Misbehavin’. Regional: Polk County, Crowns, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Thunder Knocking on the Door (Helen Hayes Award nomination), Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Helen Hayes Award nomination), Golden Boy. Center Theatre Group: Five Guys Named Moe (NAACP nomination, L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation Award nomination). Television: One Life to Live, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Tony Awards, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show. |
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Armelia McQueen
Armelia
Broadway: Ain’t Misbehavin’ (original cast), Harrigan n’ Hart, 5-6-7-8 Dance. National Tours: South Pacific (six national tours as Bloody Mary), Guys and Dolls (General Cartwright), Hair (South Africa, as Hud), Tommy (Nurse), Jesus Christ Superstar, Cabin in the Sky (lead role of Petunia), Ain’t Misbehavin’. Other New York: House of Flowers (Encores!), Birth of the Blues (Lincoln Center Children’s Concert). In Los Angeles: Mama Vane in Dorian (NoHo Arts Center, pre-Broadway), Meg Boyd in Damn Yankees! (Reprise), Leonard Bernstein’s Mass and Bloody Mary in South Pacific at the Hollywood Bowl. Film: Bulworth (with Warren Beatty), Jerry Maguire (with Tom Cruise), Ghost (with Whoopi Goldberg), Quartet (Merchant Ivory), Life with Eddie Murphy, The Cotton Club, Sparkle, among others. Television: Jag, Inconceivable, All About the Andersons, Good News, Living Single, Martin, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Adventures in Wonderland (two-time Ace Award nominee for Best Actress in a Comedy), Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Emmy Award-winner, Best Musical Special on NBC). |
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Roz Ryan
Roz
Ms. Ryan’s Broadway credits include Mabel in the revival of The Pajama Game, Mama Morton in Chicago (as well as national and international tours), Bertha in One Mo’ Time and Effie in Dreamgirls. She made her Broadway debut succeeding Nell Carter in Ain’t Misbehavin’. She was the only woman ever to perform the role of the Ghost of Christmas Present in Madison Square Garden’s A Christmas Carol, and starred in the Playwrights Horizons production of Violet. She toured the country as Miss Hannigan in the 20th Anniversary production of Annie. Additional theatre credits: Bloody Mary in South Pacific, Seven Guitars, The Old Settler, Blues in the Night (Carbonell and Zoni Awards) Cole Porter Requests the Pleasure (Carbonell Award). Television credits include Amelia Hetebrink on the hit sitcom Amen, Anthony Anderson’s mother on All About the Andersons, Mrs. Dixon on UPN’s Good News, the CBS series Danny (starring opposite Daniel Stern), Mae Palmer on Showtime’s Barbershop, as well as guest appearances on JAG, Half and Half, among others. Her voice will be familiar to many as Bubbie the Whale on the new hit Cartoon Network series The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Thalia in the Disney animated series Hercules (as well as the hit film), and as Wade’s mom, Roz, on Kim Possible. Films: I Think I Love My Wife, This Side of the Truth, Waiting for Forever, Buzz Lightyear: Star Command, The Cotton Club, Went to Coney Island…, Divine Intervention, and co-produced and starred in Nikita Blues. Watch for her appearance as a guest judge on Iron Chef America, airing later this year. For more information, go to http://www.rozryan.com or http://www.myspace.com/mzrozryan. |
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Debra Walton
Debra
Direct from a four-month stint with the PT Barnum Circus, headlining as the Oldest Woman in the World, in the Asolo Repertory /Jupiter Theatre co- production of Barnum the musical, Debra proudly joins this star studded cast of Ain’t Misbehavin’ making her Ahmanson debut. Performing in the Tony Award-winning revival of The Pajama Game, Debra was seen on Broadway and nationally singing and dancing with Harry Connick, Jr. Off-Broadway: Debra created her award-winning roles in Cookin’ At the Cookery, The Life and Times of Alberta Hunter, earning her a Drama Desk nomination and a Barrymore Award. Honing her skills on tour and in the regions, Debra has performed a variety of roles from Anita in West Side Story to Minnie Fay in Hello, Dolly! National Tours: Annie Get Your Gun, South Pacific and Chicago, playing various roles including Mama Morton! For more fun facts about Debra, check www.debrawalton.com. |
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Thomas “Fats” Waller
Playwright
was an African-American jazz pianist, organist, composer and comedic entertainer. He was born Thomas Wright Waller in New York City. Waller studied classical piano and organ before apprenticing himself to legendary Harlem stride pianist James P. Johnson. Johnson introduced Waller to the world of rent parties (a party with a piano player, designed to help pay the rent by charging the guests), and soon he developed a performing career. He was an excellent pianist—now considered one of the very best who ever played in the stride style—but his songwriting and his lovable, roguish stage personality (“One never knows, do one?”) overshadowed his playing. Before his solo career, he played with many performers, from Erskine Tate to Bessie Smith, but his greatest success came with his own five-or-six-piece combo, Fats Waller and His Rhythm. Among his songs are “Squeeze Me” (1929), “Ain’t Misbehavin’” (1929), “Honeysuckle Rose” (1929), “I’ve Got a Feeling I’m Falling” (1929) and “Jitterbug Waltz” (1942). He collaborated with the Tin Pan Alley lyricist Andy Razaf and had a commercially successful career, which according to some music critics eclipsed his great musical talent. His nickname came about because he weighed nearly 300 pounds. His weight and drinking are believed
to have contributed to his premature death. Waller also made a successful tour of the British Isles in the late 1930s, and appeared in one of the earliest BBC Television broadcasts. He also appeared in several feature films and short subject films, most notably Stormy Weather in 1943. With Razaf he wrote “What Did I Do (To Be So Black and Blue)?” (1929), which became a hit for Louis Armstrong. This song, a searing treatment of racism, black and white, calls into question the accusations of “shallow entertainment” leveled at both Armstrong and Waller. On December 15, 1943, at age 39, Waller died aboard an eastbound train in the vicinity of Kansas City, Missouri, following a West Coast engagement. |
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Richard Maltby, Jr.
Co-Conceiver and Director
Broadway: Conceived and directed two Tony Award-winning musicals – Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1978: Tony, N.Y. Drama Critics, Outer Critics, Drama Desk Awards, also Tony Award for Best Director) and Fosse (1999: Tony, Outer Critics, Drama Desk Awards). Created and directed Ring Of Fire, The Johnny Cash Musical Show (2006). With composer David Shire, director/lyricist: Baby (1983, book by Sybille Pearson, seven Tony Award nominations); lyricist: Big (1996,book by John Weidman, Tony nomination for Best Score); lyricist/conceiver, Take Flight (book by John Weidman), world premiere 2007 at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, also produced in Japan, 2007. With Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, co-lyricist: Miss Saigon (Evening Standard Award, Best Musical, 1990), Tony nomination for Best Score (1991); co-bookwriter/lyricist: The Pirate Queen (2007). Director, The Story Of My Life (2009); director/co-lyricist: American version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Song & Dance (1986 Tony Award for star Bernadette Peters). Off-Broadway: director/lyricist, Starting Here, Starting Now (1977,Grammy nomination) and Closer Than Ever (1989, two Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Musical and Best Score), both written with composer David Shire. Regional: director, The Story Of My Life (2008, Goodspeed Opera House), director, Mask (2008, Pasadena Playhouse), director, The 60’s Project (2006, Goodspeed). Film: screenplay, Miss Potter (2007) about Beatrix Potter, starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor (Christopher Award, best screenplay). Thirty year association with the Manhattan Theatre Club. Contributes devilish crossword puzzles to Harpers Magazine. Son of well-known orchestra leader; five children – Nicholas, David, Jordan, Emily and Charlotte. |
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Murray Horwitz
Co-Conceiver
Broadway: Co-author, lyricist and associate director, Ain’t Misbehavin’; co-author, co-director, Haarlem Nocturne; lyricist, The Great Gatsby (Metropolitan Opera); numerous galas and special events. National Tours: Solo show, An Evening of Sholom Aleichem (directed by Richard Maltby, Jr.); Ain’t Misbehavin’. Other New York: Author, Sole Sisters (La MaMa E.T.C.); author and director, Hard Sell (Shakespeare Festival). Radio: Co-host, Hanukkah Lights (NPR); commentator, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation (NPR); originator, Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me (NPR); panelist, Says You! (NPR). Television: Creative consultant, The Annual Mark Twain Prize (PBS); writer, Jazz Comes Home to Newport (PBS); director, The Guiding Light, As the World Turns. While at NPR, in addition to three Peabody Awards and The National Medal Of Arts, Horwitz received a Gold Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the jazz documentary Louis Armstrong: The First 90 Years, which he produced. As a songwriter, he has won 20 ASCAP songwriting awards, and, in addition to his work on The Great Gatsby, contributed lyrics to the Tony Award-winning Ain’t Misbehavin’ and many revues, including Broadway’s Upstairs at O’Neal’s. |
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Arthur Faria
Choreographed and
Musical Staging
created the original musical staging and choreography for the 1978 Tony Award-winning Ain’t Misbehavin’. For this he earned nominations for both the Tony and Drama Desk Awards, and shared the Obie for the original production at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Arthur recreated his work for the tenth anniversary Broadway revival starring the original cast. He has since gone on to direct and choreograph major productions of Ain’t starring The Pointer Sisters, Della Reese, and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. Mr. Faria was honored to have Lena Horne personally select him to create and direct her triumphant return to Broadway in Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music. This Tony Award-winning production garnered him a second Drama Desk nomination. Critics praised his inventive staging of the notorious Storyville and the original production of The All-Night Strut, which broke all records at the historic Ford’s Theatre. Off-Broadway audiences have enjoyed his award-winning work in Trixie True, Teen Detective, A Bundle of Nerves, and the roller skating musical, The Derby. Television credits include NBC’s celebrated presentation of Ain’t Misbehavin’, and the PBS Great Performances production of Duke Ellington: The Music Lives On, which earned him two Emmy Award nominations. Stars that have called upon Arthur’s talents include Bette Midler, Bobby Short, Valentina and Leonid Koslov of the Bolshoi Ballet, Bette Davis, Richard Gere, Liv Ullman, Alice Faye and John Payne, The Fifth Dimension and The Village People, among many others. Mr. Faria was awarded a Doctorate Degree in Fine and Performing Arts from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. |
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