If They Can Make It There

Posted by Bruce Miller
Hannah and I had the chance to visit with four actor friends--three old and one new--on our recent trip to New York. We caught up with the first two, Zak Resnick and Mark Ludden (below and to the right), at lunchtime on a frigid Saturday morning.

As many of you will remember, Zak recently starred at Barksdale in Into the Woods (Rapunzel's Prince, Second Wolf--above and to the left) and Thoroughly Modern Millie (Jimmy--below and to the left). Mark is a veteran of one of Barksdale's several productions of Joseph/Dreamcoat, which preceded my tenure as artistic director. Both Zak and Mark are doing Richmond proud as they put their amazing talents to good work in the Big Apple.

If you've been keeping an eye on Zak's career, you know he's very quickly becoming someone to watch on the Great White Way. There's definitely no moss growing on this boy.

Just before beginning Millie rehearsals last spring, Zak graduated from the professional theatre program at Carnegie Mellon University. In August, he took his final bows in Millie and moved to New York almost before the applause had stopped. Just a few weeks later, he made his Off Off Broadway debut with the New York Musical Theatre Festival playing a leading role in The Cure, a new vampire musical that generated a significant buzz (see my earlier blog post, Zak Zooms in on Vampire Zeitgeist, Friday, Sept 25, 2009).

Then on October 1, Zak and his amazing tenor made it into the studio to record the new CD from the Broadway Boys, a vocal group comprised of 26 of the most accomplished male voices in New York. He was in illustrious company. Also singing on the Boys CD were Jesse Nager from the Broadway cast of Mary Poppins, Danny Calvert and Landon Beard (Altar Boyz), Telly Leung (Rent), Michael James Scott (Hair), Maurice Murphy (Putnam County Spelling Bee), Daniel Torres (Wicked), Gabe Violett (Spring Awakening), Marty Thomas (Xanadu), and Peter Matthew Smith (Hairspray).

Later in October, Zak made his debut at Joe's Pub, one of the hottest vocal venues in town. He shared his talents with the Public Theater's Music Theater Initiative Songwriters Showcase, singing songs from Dogfight, a new musical by rising composer / lyricist stars Pasek and Paul. Dogfight has just been commissioned by Lincoln Center, and Zak was among those vocalists recruited to showcase the amazing new score in its first public performance.

As a sure sign of his expanding New York profile, Zak was photographed by BroadwayWorld.com in November simply for attending the 6th Annual Broadway Unplugged concert at Town Hall. Bedecked in a golden scarf (see above), Zak stood with one of the evening's star performers, Daniel Reichard (Jersey Boys). Coincidentally, also performing that night at Town Hall was another of Richmond's vocal wunderkinds, Emily Skinner (below and to the left).

This past Monday, Zak joined an All-Star cast at the Canal Room for a one-night-only event celebrating the talents of one of Broadway's most exciting young composers/actors/ vocalists, Jonathan Reid-Gealt. Joining Zak at the mic--or perhaps protocol requires that I say that Zak was joining them--were several of Broadway's most amazing voices, including Jeremy Jordan (currently standing by as Tony in West Side Story--and formerly starring at Firehouse Theatre in Austin's Bridge), Tituss Burgess (recent star of The Little Mermaid and Guys and Dolls), Lauren Kennedy (knocking 'em dead in Vanities and Les Mis--also a former Ashland resident who graciously met with our 2007 Barksdale NYC tour group three years ago when we went to see her in Broadway's Spamalot), plus Quentin Earl Darrington and Bobby Steggert (a personal favorite of mine), both from the cast of the just-closed Ragtime revival.

Zak's career could not hold more promise.

Also making his Mark on American theatre is our other friend, Mr. Ludden. For the last few seasons he has alternated national tours of Les Mis (to the left) and Evita with summer gigs at the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse in Auburn, New York. Last year at about this time, Mark was one of the Barksdale alum who graciously agreed to talk with our 2009 NYC tour group during brunch in The Rainbow Room.

Hannah and I caught up with Zak and Mark in their current day jobs as singing waiters at Ellen's Stardust Diner--one of the coolest (and hardest to land) gigs going for up-and-coming Broadway singers. If you've never been to Ellen's, you really should give it a try. The great performances come with the price of lunch--and the singers are phenomenal.

Zak sang a couple songs during our time in the diner, easily outdoing Michael Bublé with his cover of the Leonard Cohen classic I'm Your Man. Mark's power baritone shook Ellen's rafters, providing beautiful counterpoint to Zak's pop tenor.

I suppose all the great theatre singers in New York don't come from Richmond, but what we heard on Saturday was proof positive that at least two of them do.

It was great to catch up with both Zak and Mark last weekend, even if the visits were all too short. All we Richmonders owe them our support as they chart their careers in New York New York. I'll try my best to keep all of you apprised of their successes as they achieve them.

And very soon, I'll write about the other two actor friends who graciously greeted us in the Big Apple.

--Bruce Miller

Those Canaan Days

Posted by Bruce Miller
Being, as it is, the first day of Autumn, I would be remiss to say goodbye to the Summer of ’09 without recognizing that a quarter century has passed since Barksdale began the most prosperous two years of its history. It was on Friday, June 29, 1984 that Barksdale opened Randy Strawderman’s production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a success of Biblical proportions. The smash hit musical took Richmond by storm. It ran for over two years at Hanover Tavern and then headed out of town on national tour. Joseph was directed and choreographed by Randy, with music direction and arrangements by Barry Hayes, setting and costumes by Jann Paxton, and lighting by Katrina Allison. James Hughes, a virtual unknown with no professional stage experience, starred in the title role, with Sandee Flores (née Hayes) co-starring as the Narrator, the role of her career.

The incomparable Jay Lundy appeared as the patriarch Jacob, and the now ubiquitous David Clark, Larry Cook, and Cynde Liffick (née Cindy) made their first big splashes on the Richmond theatre scene.

The rest of the original cast included Robin Arthur, Regina Christopher, Karen Elaine Cress, Holly Dudley, Robert Easter, Adam Harris, Paul Haynes, Kevin Henshaw, Tyler Lincks, Connie Manson, Harry McEnerny, Robert Pemberton, Don Semmens, Bernard Toliver, and Bryan Wade. Tracy Adams, Graham Cheek, Michael Cole, Philip Jowdy, Rhonda Lipscomb, Bobby Mauney, and Norvell Robinson Jr. joined as replacements and alternates later in the summer.

Terry Little served as Production Stage Manager. Barbara Stanitski stage managed (to be replaced later in the summer by Sybel Crone). Richmond artists Bill Nelson (poster graphic) and Clifford Earl (sun sculpture that held center stage) added immeasurably to the production. Rook Strong and Doug Draucker (alternating with David Jewett) joined Barry Hayes in the onstage combo.

In those days gone by, Barksdale did not have a “season” or “subscribers,” and when a show was a hit, it simply kept running. Joseph certainly was a hit, and its phenomenal run broke Richmond longevity records for all time.

So as we bid farewell to this Silver Anniversary Summer, all of us at Barksdale offer many thanks to the innumberable theatre artists who have added so much to our company’s history. Your incomparable efforts and talents will live on our stage / your stage forever, long after the final curtain of any one particular show.

Your presence is felt and honored.

--Bruce Miller

Broadway Stars with Barksdale Roots

Posted by Bruce Miller

I wrote a couple weeks ago about accompanying my daughter and three of her high school friends on a Broadway weekend, and I promised to return to this topic soon to discuss the shows we saw. Tonight’s blog entry is about the first musical of this fall’s trip – The Phantom of the Opera.

Phantom may be the longest running show in Broadway history, but I’d never seen it before last month. I hadn’t even seen the movie. When I go to New York, I almost always choose plays and musicals that I think we may produce one day in Richmond. Because of Phantom’s reliance on a huge production, it never made my list.

So it was a thrill for me to see it with my daughter and her friends, three of whom were also seeing it for the first time. The arrangements of the music and the relative simplicity of the special effects (by 2007 standards) reminded us that the show originally opened in London in 1986. But the classic story, the haunting melodies and the solid production values still captured our imaginations.

The most exciting aspect of our visit with the Phantom, at least for me, was the chance to point out proudly to my four teenage charges the two Phantom cast members who have strong roots with Barksdale and Theatre IV – Kris Koop (pictured below and to the right) and George Lee Andrews.

Kris moved to Richmond immediately after graduating from Shenandoah Conservatory of Music in 1987 to work as a touring actress with Theatre IV. She couldn’t have been nicer or more talented. In 1988, she starred as Cinderella in our first production of that Rodgers and Hammerstein classic—our first major musical in the historic Empire. Later that year, she joined Barksdale’s cast of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and toured with Joseph when it left the Tavern for other venues around the country.

Since 2001, Kris has understudied Phantom’s female leads, and she's played Christine and Carlotta on several occasions. It’s an ideal, top-of-the-heap Broadway job. When not filling in for one of the two leads, Kris appears in the ensemble.

Kris is perhaps most respected in Broadway circles for the leadership she has provided to the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS fundraising efforts. She began volunteering for BC/EFA as soon as she moved to NYC. She and her husband, Steve Ouellette, House Manager at the Neil Simon Theatre, live in Queens. When she finally got the call that she was cast in Phantom, she was working fulltime at BC/EFA, and she still works there today. One of her special projects has been pulling together The Phantom Cooks, Part Deux, the charity cookbook that thus far has earned over $80,000 for BC/EFA.

Everyone in the Theatre IV and Barksdale family should be so proud of Kris and her exceptional Broadway accomplishments both onstage and off.

George Lee Andrews (pictured in his Phantom costume to the right) has been in the cast of Phantom since its Broadway opening in 1988, almost 20 years ago. Guinness, literally, is taking note. Today he plays the role of Monsieur Firmin, one of the two new owner-managers of the Opera House.

Ten years before George began his record-breaking run in Phantom, he played Cole Porter himself in the ill-fated Los Angeles professional premiere of Barksdale’s mega-hit, Red Hot and Cole.

And George’s Barksdale connections don’t end there. Hannah Zold (pictured to the left), who appeared at Barksdale and Theatre IV most recently in Into the Woods, The Wizard of Oz, Mame, and The Full Monty, has been close pals with George and his daughter, Shannon Lee, since Hannah and Shannon worked together in The Lost Colony in 2002. Lee is the actual family name; Andrews was added as a stage name. When Shannon Lee married one of Hannah’s best buds from college, Aaron Galligan-Stierle (who will be playing Papa Who in Broadway’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas once the strike allows him to), papa George Lee officiated at the wedding ceremony and Hannah Zold was the soloist.

The photo to the right is of Hannah Zold (leaning in from the right) and Jennings Whiteway in the Barksdale lobby during Hannah’s visit to Richmond a couple weeks ago. The weekend after this photo was taken, Hannah was back in NYC, hanging with the Lee clan, including her Phantom pal George.

It’s great to be able to remind the teens who are forging their first associations with the Barksdale and Theatre IV families in 2007 that many of the major theatre artists in today's national headlines are also a part of the historic Barksdale and Theatre IV clans.

To view a 2004 video of Kris and George and their Phantom cast mates, visit http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Video.aspx?ci=502222.

All of us have reason to be proud and to celebrate the phenomenal success of two great Barksdale and Theatre IV alum – Kris Koop and George Lee Andrews.

--Bruce Miller