This year AI has joined the production team of the multiple Award winning Production Central Avenue Breakdown
The 2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival in association with Moldy Fig Productions LLC presents Central Avenue Breakdown, an American musical with music and lyrics by Kevin Ray, book by Kevin Ray and Andrea Lepcio, additional story by Suellen Vance, and directed by Christopher Windom. Central Avenue Breakdown runs July 19th at 8:00pm, July 10th at 5:00pm and 9:00pm, July 21st at 1:00pm, July 22nd at 5:00 pm and 9:00pm at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 W. 42nd Street).
Prior to Central Avenue Breakdown performing at NYMF, the show will be performed at the Daegu International Musical Festival (DIMF) in South Korea as part of NYMF’s exchange program with DIMF.
The show was featured in the 2011 New York Musical Theatre Festival and has had a year of development. The book of the musical has been rewritten based on Kevin Ray’s original work. NYMF is producing Central Avenue Breakdown this year and further demonstrates their dedication to the longevity and success of their musicals.
Central Avenue Breakdown is the first show to return to NYMF two years in a row for an encore production. The 2011 production of the musical received 5 of the top NYMF excellence Awards: Music, Orchestration, Choreography, Individual Performance, and the Daegu International Musical Festival Production Award, as well as two Honorable Mentions for Direction and Outstanding Ensemble.
Central Avenue Breakdown is a musical about family, jazz, tragedy and triumph. It tells the story of Bill and Jim Marcel, brothers and sax players, battling to carve out unique voices amidst the rising musical movements of swing and bop. Driven by their father’s failed musical aspirations and their own ambitions, brother betrays brother and each pays a price. Set in electrifying 1940s Los Angeles, the show’s action unfolds against the backdrop of World War II, a newly booming Hollywood, and the early stirrings of the civil rights movement. Central Avenue Breakdown plunges the audience into the sexy Central Avenue jazz scene where artists must choose between fame and authenticity, greed and faith, pride and transformation.
“Central Avenue Breakdown was a breakout hit at last year’s NYMF, and it has been exciting and fascinating to continue to work on the show and to bring it back for this year’s festival,” said NYMF Executive Director and Producer Isaac Robert Hurwitz. “It’s important in the development of any musical to give it time to ‘breathe’ and the changes that have been made have really focused the story.”
The cast includes: Albert Christmas (Bway: Ragtime, FX’s “Lights Out,” “Blue Bloods”), Juson Williams (Two time Audelco Award Winner, The Wiz, Stormy Weather), Stacey Sargeant (Legally Blonde, Passing Strange), Joshua Boone (Cutman: A Boxing Musical, A Raisin In The Sun), Rod Lawrence (Passing Strange, Book of Grace), Jeremiah Zinger (The Full Monty, Grease), Britton Smith (Hairspray, Ragtime), Kimberly Dora Exum (Chicago, For Colored Girls…)Rebecca LaChance (Broadway Rising Stars Concert), Anne Marie Vick (A Chorus Line, White Christmas, Anything Goes), Sheldon Henry (South Pacific, The Who’s Tommy), and Sheila Jones (Festival of the Lion King, Ragtime).
Central Avenue Breakdown is directed by Drama League Fellow Christopher Windom (Ragtime at Theaterworks, Clue: The Musical, Big River) with musical direction by Jonathan Smith (Swing!, Thoroughly Modern Millie). Costume design is by Janell Berte (Family Dinner, Plagued – A Love Story), sound design is by Josh Leibert (Our Sinatra) and lighting design is by Grant W. S. Yeager (Now.Here.This, Chimichangas and Zoloft)
Tickets for Central Avenue Breakdown are $25, and the show plays at the The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 W. 42nd Street) from July 19 – July 22, 2012. Tickets can be purchased by calling (212) 352-3101 or by visiting www.nymf.org. For more information: www.nymf.org.
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Kevin Ray (Book, Music and Lyrics)
Kevin Ray is a songwriter-singer living in New York City. He has recorded seven solo albums, the musical Central Avenue Breakdown, and, in 2006, composed the MAC nominated Seasoned Greetings CD. His songs have been performed on television, in theaters, and Federal courtrooms. He has spent the last year performing around the world and working on his new CD Radio Silence. His unique style of piano-based pop-rock mixes elements of theater, jazz, and soul music. His songs are personal and literate, and range from intensely emotional, to humorous, to political. For more on Kevin and his music, go to www.kevinray.net.
Andrea Lepcio (Book)
Andrea Lepcio’s Looking for the Pony was a finalist for the Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award and the NEA Outstanding New American Play Award. It was presented in a “Rolling World Premiere” Off-Broadway at Vital Theatre Company in New York and Synchronicity Performance Group in Atlanta with subsequent productions regionally. Her other plays have been developed and presented at Lark Play Development Center, TerraNova Collective, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, America-in-Play and Women’s Project. Room 16 (book by Andrea Lepcio, music by Stephen Sislen, lyrics by Stephen Sislen and Ben H. Winters) was presented at the Festival of New Artists, Goodspeed Opera House and Bound for Broadway XI. Since 2004 she has been Dramatists Guild Fellows Program Director. She earned an M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.A. in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic.
Suellen Vance (co-producer, additional story)
Suellen Vance is an actress-producer-writer as well as a managing partner of YankeeBelle Productions, LLC. Some of her recent projects include the Fall 2011 Broadway opening of Godspell and 2010’s The Pee Wee Herman Show on Broadway; Bathory: The Musical (2010 NYMF Next Link Finalist); and Central Avenue Breakdown. As an actress, Suellen appeared in John Gould Rubin’s 2010 sold-out production of Hedda Gabler as well as in numerous commercials and voiceovers. In 1999, she won the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America’s first-ever Woman of the Year Award (NYC). www.suellenvance.com
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The New York Musical Theatre Festival, Now in its ninth year, the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) is the largest annual musical theatre event in America and is widely regarded as the essential source for new material and talent discovery. NYMF provides a launching pad for the next generation of musicals and their creators to ensure the continued vitality of one of America’s greatest art forms. Hailed as the “Sundance of Musical Theatre,” NYMF discovers, nurtures, and promotes promising musical theatre artists and producers at all stages of development, and inspires a diverse audience through vibrant, accessible, powerful new work.
NYMF is the flagship program of National Music Theater Network, Inc., a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization. NYMF 2012 is presented in association with BroadwayWorld.com, Production Resource Gro
up, and TheaterMania.com, and is supported by American Eagle Outfitters, Back Stage, BroadwayBox.com, BroadwayInsider.com, Clear Channel Spectacolor, Disney Store Times Square, Fox 5/ WNYW-TV, King Displays, NASDAQ OMX, New World Stages, Next Magazine, PMD Promotions, The Port Authority of NY & NJ, Queerty.com, Thomson Reuters, TheMenEvent.com, Times Square Squared, and Yelp. Major supporters include The ASCAP Foundation, BMI Foundation, Inc., The BWF Foundation, Con Edison, The Nathan Cummings Foundation with the support and encouragement of Jamie Mayer Phinney, The New Musical Development Foundation, The Jerome Robbins Foundation, The Rodgers & Hammerstein Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and The Theater League. NYMF is supported, in part, by funds from the New York City Theater Subdistrict Council, LDC, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and by public funds fromthe New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council and from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
NYMF Memberships, which combine charitable contributions with valuable, flexible ticket packages and perks like early seating, and tickets to individual events, are currently available for purchase at (212) 352-3101 or www.nymf.org.
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Central Avenue Breakdown is an official selection of the 2012
New York Musical Theatre Festival
