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A girl you should know!Karen Levine |
Karen LevineKaren has performed at clubs and events in New York City, the Hamptons, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Boston and New Haven and is receiving fantastic buzz from the cabaret community. Karen's first love is singing and performing. Throughout early school years she performed in musical theater in such productions as Take Her She's Mine; Grease; Annie Get Your Gun; Fiddler on the Roof; Sound of Music; and ensemble productions of Oklahoma and West Side Story. Later, Karen joined New York’s All State Choir; a Jazz Ensemble in Ware, MA; Harvard’s University Choir; and the Radcliffe Choral Society With all of this background, other issues prevailed. A college and business education was next. First, Harvard College with a B.A. in Economics, Magna cum Laude, and then on to The Wharton School for a M.B.A. in Marketing. Recently appointed Corporate Marketing Director for Hachette Filipacchi Media, Karen continues her music and performing. Calling on her extraordinary marketing ability, Karen gathers audiences for her one-woman cabaret shows. Because cabaret is a solo venture, and audiences don’t readily familiarize themselves with this wonderful art form, many can learn from Karen’s proficiency in urging audiences to come to her shows. And, once smitten, they return. It is a two-way act of love: Performer to audience; audience to performer. Top Paul Trueblood, Musical DirectorPaul appeared with Michael Feinstein on two programs at Carnegie Recital Hall last season. He also arranged and conducted two new CDs with Metropolitan Opera star Youngok Shin (Samsung Classics) and with Broadway legend Sally Anne Howes. Paul accompanied Betty Comden and Adolph Green in their highly successful run at Joe’s Pub (New York Shakespeare Festival) and played the Florida condo circuit with Dody Goodman. In 1996-97 Paul toured the world with Marianne Faithfull in a Kurt Weill program, and their CD together 20th Century Blues, recorded live at the New Morning Jazz Café in Paris is available on RCA Victor. Paul has been musical director for Anne Francine, Karen Akers, Nancy Dussault, Matthew Broderick, Judy Kaye, and Jose Ferrer, among others. During their lifetimes, Paul was the personal pianist for legendary director Joshua Logan and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner. He has written special material for Radio City Music Hall, Martin Charnin’s Upstairs At O’Neal’s, numerous cabaret performers, and two scores for the American Methodist Bicentennial – A Church Is Born (Carnegie Hall, 1985) and Aldersgate’88 (Avery Fisher Hall, 1988). Paul conducted the New York Company of the Drama Critics Award Musical Your Own Thing, the 1986 Brodaway revival of Oh’ Coward, as well as The Chosen, Dancing In The Dark, Red, White and Maddox, and Joshua Logan’s re-mounting of Annie Get Your Gun. Paul provided vocal arrangements and direction for the Elektra/Nonesuch restoration recordings of Girl Crazy and Strike Up The Band. Mr. Trueblood is a Master Teacher at the Cabaret Conference at Yale every summer.
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Spence Porter, DirectorSpence is an up and coming playwright whose work has been produced around the globe, most recently at the Terry Schreiber Studio in New York City (The Woman from the Sea) and in Leiden, The Netherlands (Francesca). There have now been fifteen productions of his plays. Spence has his bachelor’s degree from Harvard, he attended the Iowa Writers Workshop and received his M.F.A. in Playwriting from Ohio University. |
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Eric Michael Gillett, DirectorEric Michael Gillett directed Karen's second show: A Girl You Should Know. He is best-known for his ten-year run as the Singing Ringmaster of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. During his tenure there, he appeared on countless television and radio programs, including the A&E documentary Two Hundred Years of Circus in America, hosted the CBS television special The Return of Gunther Gebel-Williams, and was featured on Disney's multimillion-selling Sing-Along video Let's Go to the Circus. Eric was honored with a 1992 Bistro Award and the 1995 MAC Award for Outstanding Male Vocalist. His solo albums are Sing a Rainbow and Cast of Thousands -- The Songs of Craig Carnelia, which was named the #1 Cabaret CD by In Theater Magazine. Eric has appeared twice in the Brownville Concert Series (his most recent appearance will be aired on PBS this year) and in two of the 92nd Street Y's Lyrics and Lyricists tributes. In New York he was featured in the hit revue Big City Rhythm (original cast album on Harbinger Records), with Broadway veteran Melanie Vaughan in It Takes Two -- The Duets of Stephen Sondheim (In Theater's pick for 1998's Best Duo Cabaret Show), and in his solo show Wherever Love Takes Me. Most recently, Eric starred as Albin in La Cage Aux Folles and as Carriere in the Kopit/Yeston version of Phantom. He made his Broadway debut in Kiss Me Kate at the Martin Beck Theater
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