A Mostly Monthly E-Newsletter by and about GrooveLily
Valerie Vigoda: vocals/violin
Brendan Milburn: keys/vocals
Gene Lewin: drums/vocals
G r o o v e L i l y E – N e w s # 3 4
Possibly the most momentous E-News so far…so without further ado… 
:)
1. The Fourth Band Member: GrooveSeed Due In October
2. “Striking 12″ Off-Broadway This Nov/Dec: Announcing Our Producers
3. Our Co-Writer Rachel & Director Ted (“Striking 12″ & “Wheelhouse”): Tony Nominees!
4. GrooveLily Does Shakespeare: “Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Paper Mill Playhouse and McCarter Theatre, Spring 2006
5. RIPFest: New 10-Minute Movie Musical With Lyrics By Valerie & Brendan, Screening Monday/Tuesday (May 23/24) in NYC & LA
6. New GrooveLily Group on FRIENDSTER! We Like Friendster.
7. Brendan’s Music In “Songs From An Unmade Bed”
8. Gene Playing Drums With Audra McDonald
9. “Wheelhouse” In Progress! NYMT Festival In September
10. Department Of Gratitude: TheatreWorks Palo Alto
11. Theater Recommendation: “FLIGHT” @ Lucille Lortel, NYC
12. New Review On Electro-Music.com
13. Upcoming GrooveLily/Related Shows: TX, MA, NY…
1. The Fourth Band Member: GrooveSeed Due In October
It’s official! Valerie is 20 weeks pregnant…Brendan is filled with uncontrollable glee…and our favorite drummer is campaigning hard for a namesake, claiming that “Gene” works equally well for both genders.
Due date is October 3! You’ll be seeing slightly less of us for a few months (though more of Valerie with every sighting…), and we’ve just recently learned that it’s a BOY. *Temporary* name for the tiny one: Spike. (Permanent earthly name to be revealed upon entrance to the world.)
2. “Striking 12″ Off-Broadway This Nov/Dec: Announcing Our Producers
We are absolutely delighted to announce: The award-winning Melting Pot Theatre Company (“Flight,” “Cookin’ at the Cookery,” “Cobb”) in association with Nancy Nagel Gibbs (“All Shook Up,” “Bat Boy,” “Man of La Mancha”) plans to produce the New York premiere of our show “Striking 12″ Off-Broadway in November/December 2005.
Venue specifics to be announced soon; meanwhile, we can tell you that the dates of this year’s limited engagement will be approximately Thanksgiving through New Year’s. Come one come all! Details forthcoming as soon as we know them.
**
Bay Area Theatre Critics’ Circle Award (Best Touring Company) 2004
“Striking 12 strikes gold!” – LA Times
“TOO HOT TO MISS!” – The Mercury News
“buoyant…magnetic…a holiday gift for us all” – The San Francisco Chronicle
“A gem, no matter what you call it…quite wonderful and new” – The Palo Alto Weekly
“thoroughly entertaining and musically rich” – The Oakland Tribune
**
You can find all current info on “Striking 12,” including the CD released recently by PS Classics, here:
http://www.groovelily.com/index2.html?striking12
3. Our Co-Writer Rachel & Director Ted (“Striking 12″ & “Wheelhouse”): Tony Nominees!
We are incredibly proud and happy about the meteoric rise of our co-writer Rachel Sheinkin in the theater world! She just received her first Tony award nomination, as book writer for the new hit Broadway musical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.”
http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/nominees/shows/T/twentyfifthannualputnam.html
AND, we are thrilled to pieces that our other creative team member, our wonderful director Ted Sperling, is also nominated!! He is music-directing and conducting “The Light in the Piazza,” and has been nominated along with Adam Guettel and Bruce Coughlin for the Best Orchestrations Tony award.
http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/nominees/shows/L/lightinthepiazza.html
Cross your fingers on June 5th, when the winners are announced. Go team!
4. GrooveLily Does Shakespeare: “Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Paper Mill Playhouse and McCarter Theatre, Spring 2006
We are incredibly excited about this challenging new project we’ve been invited to do. Writing begins this summer (along with a GrooveLily concert at the Paper Mill, tentatively scheduled for July 31 – more on that as soon as it’s confirmed), and we will be in residence at two wonderful New Jersey theaters from February – May 2006, working with terrific director Tina Landau on live music and songs for a brand new springtime production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
We don’t know yet exactly what it’s going to be like…we just know that we’re honored to participate!
From the Paper Mill Playhouse brochure:
Written by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
With live music by GROOVELILY
Directed by TINA LANDAU
A first-time collaboration and co-production with McCARTER THEATERShakespeare’s most romantic comedy combines the world of imagination
with enchanting elements of Ancient Greece and Renaissance England.
And now, it gets an all-new musical twist from the accomplished
actor/singer/musicians that are the pop/rock sensation GrooveLily!
Ill-fated lovers, bungling actors, and a feuding pair of sprites are
struck with Cupid’s misfired arrows. The result: romantic havoc.
Experience the unreasoning and undeniably powerful nature of love in
this purely joyful, hilarious, and dreamlike comedy.
http://www.papermill.org
http://www.mccarter.org
5. RIPFest: New 10-Minute Movie Musical With Lyrics By Valerie & Brendan, Screening Monday/Tuesday (May 23/24) in NYC & LA
Val and Brendan have had the privilege of being involved in the making of *another* 10-minute movie musical. Last year, it was a laundromat/basketball court love story called “Say You Do,” and this year it’s a Jaguar dealership saga of self-discovery and sexy, vampy car mechanics called “On a Jag.”
Val and Bren are writing lyrics; Valerie Vigoda Band alumna Jenny Giering is composing. Tanya Barfield is the screenwriter, Dan Fields is directing, and Marlies Yearby is the choreographer. Actors are Kevyn Morrow, Morgan James and Michael Hunsaker. We’ve seen a rough cut, and it’s looking like a lot of fun.
Our movie is just one of seven 10-minute movie musicals that are being made from conception to screening in 16 days. (Yet *another* Valerie Vigoda Band alum, our dear friend Deborah Hurwitz, is composing music for one of the LA films.) Emmy award winners, Tony nominees, hit TV writers, Broadway composers/stars/directors/choreographers and other luminaries are involved in this unique lineup. The films will be screened in NYC and LA on Monday and Tuesday, May 23 and 24.
If you’d like to catch one of the screenings, visit:
http://www.rawimpressions.org/
6. New GrooveLily Group on FRIENDSTER! We Like Friendster.
In addition to being a very cool group (based near Palo Alto, where we got to meet them recently), the folks at Friendster.com have engendered a vibrant, burgeoning community of over 17 million people, where interesting and like-minded individuals are easy to find. Also, they have a live bunny mascot at their offices.
We like them very much, and they have instituted a brand-new GrooveLily Group. Come and join!
(PS: the bunny’s name is “Rammelaar” and he’s a Flemish giant. Loves to be petted and fed bananas. You can find him on the Friendster site.)
7. Brendan’s Music In “Songs From An Unmade Bed”
Brendan recently had the opportunity to be one of several composers setting Mark Campbell’s lyrics to music for a one-man show called “Songs From an Unmade Bed.” The show’s star is Michael Winther, a longtime GrooveLily proponent in the theater world, and a badass singer/actor who’s well-known in these parts for his righteous version of “Looking Forward, Looking Back.” We’re really looking forward to this one, and we hope you can make it. May 12 – June 26, NYC
http://www.nytw.org/score_and_unmade_bed_info.asp
8. Gene Playing Drums With Audra McDonald
While we are touring a bit less these days, Gene is getting to branch out a little more. In addition to various jazz gigs in the area, Gene has been performing occasionally this spring with Broadway star Audra McDonald. You can catch him with Audra (and sometimes Ted Sperling too) at the following shows:
Wed, 5/25 in Eugene, OR, Hult Center for the Performing Arts (with Ted)
http://www.hultcenter.org/
Fri, 5/27 in Berkeley, CA: Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley (no Ted)
http://www.theatrebayarea.org/tba/dtl_production.jsp?id=3409
9. “Wheelhouse” In Progress! NYMT Festival In September
We had a wonderful, intense and constructive time in Palo Alto last month workshopping “Wheelhouse.” We did 2 performances of the show as it stands so far, which is approximately 45-50 minutes of new fictional story and song, inspired by our own RV experience/debacle and ending temporarily with a cliffhanger.
We now have 3 months to finish a complete draft; we’ve been invited to present a concert reading of the entire show at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in mid-September! At that point, Val will be approximately 8.9 months pregnant…but the show has been officially approved by her doctor, as long as she remains in New York City. This will be one NOT to miss. Details soon, as we know ‘em.
10. Department Of Gratitude: TheatreWorks Palo Alto
We love these people! This Bay Area theater is passionately dedicated to supporting new work, and taking chances on nontraditional pieces they like…they have really taken us under their wing, nurturing along both our shows to date. They selflessly support writers in the creative process, providing space and resources AND supportive audiences to give feedback on work in development.
Thanks so much to Kent Nicholson, Robert Kelley, Randy Adams and everyone at TheatreWorks! If you live anywhere near Palo Alto, we heartily recommend that you subscribe to their theater, if you don’t already. You’ll be doing a very good thing.
11. Theater Recommendation: “FLIGHT” @ Lucille Lortel, NYC
We saw “FLIGHT – THE RISE AND FALL OF CHARLES LINDBERGH” last night, and it was terrific. Powerful, compelling, moving – go see it if you can!
This wonderful little show, produced by our friends at Melting Pot Theatre, may not be around for long – so check it out and tell your friends. It’s got a flawless cast, including the superb Kerry O’Malley, whom we know from back in 1995 when she starred in Brendan’s NYU thesis reading – and here’s what some critics have to say:
“EXQUISITELY PORTRAYED! With a cast of musical theater vets who
prove up to the challenge, this crisp Melting Pot production has the
clean lines and thematic clarity of the best kind of agit-prop
theater — the kind with a heart. This show is a smart bet for
transfer.”- VARIETY“An attractive production w/ a high- flying cast. FLIGHT is worth
boarding!” – The NY Sun“EXCELLENT! A well acted, well written piece of biographical fare.
TOP NOTCH!”- NJ Star Ledger
For more info and tickets:
http://www.meltingpottheatre.com/
12. New Review On Electro-Music.com
This is a lovely review of a live show we did last month. Thanks for spreading the word, Mr. Daniel Moscovitz! This is just the sort of subversive activity we like to encourage.
“GrooveLily: An Evening Of Refreshing Creativity”