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 # 4 9
We’re getting dressed up! Val will trade her Desitin-stained yoga pants, and Brendan his applesauce-festooned running shorts, for formal dress and tuxedo…because “Sleeping Beauty Wakes” has been nominated for TEN Ovation Awards. Also known as the “LA Tonys,” these awards celebrate theater in Southern California and we are incredibly honored to take part. Not only is “Beauty” nominated for World Premiere Musical, as well as Musical Large Theatre, but also we’ve received some individual nods: Val is nominated for Lead Actress in a Musical, and Brendan for Musical Direction.
If we win anything, the trophies go to Gene for his award-winning years of putting up with a married couple in his band.
The ceremony is November 12; and meanwhile, all three of us are kicking off our busy fall and winter with our not-to-be-missed Midsummer concert October 14, and “Striking 12″ on the road starting in late October!
1. *The* GL Fall NYC Event: “Midsummer” Concert @ Zipper Oct 14
2. “Striking 12″ On The Road: Tickets On Sale Now
3. “Dramatist” Magazine Roundtable On Women Writers (Featuring Val)
4. Ovation Awards Details And Link
5. Upcoming GrooveLily Shows: Full List
1. *The* GL Fall NYC Event: “Midsummer” Concert @ Zipper Oct 14
If you’re in or near NYC, we hope you can join us on SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14 at the ZIPPER THEATRE, as we celebrate our latest album, “A Little Midsummer Night’s Music.”
Our second CD on the PS Classics label, “Midsummer” features the score we wrote for an innovative production of Shakespeare’s best-loved play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by Tina Landau and co-produced by McCarter Theatre and Paper Mill Playhouse. The CD includes some of our most joyful and unfettered music to date (think prog-rock with lyrics by Shakespeare – we really went to town), and was released in February of this year, when we were mostly not at home; so it is high time for a major New York festivity. Special guests, a concert chock full of GL, including a full set of “Midsummer” music…it’s *the* GrooveLily fall NYC event. Be there!Sunday, October 14, 2007
THE ZIPPER THEATRE
336 West 37th Street
New York, NY
7 PM, $20 tickets
www.thezipperfactory.com
212.352.3101[Midsummer Night's Dream] is built around the jazz-rock band GrooveLily, and their luscious stylings recall a smooth but hard-driving blend of Roxy Music and Herbie Hancock, quite suitably ornate and theatrical.
– Jonathon Warman, The New York Blade
Much of the familiar dialogue, conveniently written in rhyming couplets, is scored and sung with contemporary GrooveLily melodies so well suited to the words that it’s hard to believe they were written centuries apart.
– William Westhoven, The Daily Record
This Dream is not only embraced by an original score and songs by GrooveLily, a New York-based trio, but is set in motion by them…Their music, sensual, glib, romantic and raucous, delights throughout with its varied and eclectic musical vocabulary traversing rock, blues, Broadway, folk and jazz, even a passing nod to Kurt Weill, but mostly defined by its originality and independence.
– Simon Saltzman, CurtainUp
2. “Striking 12″ On The Road: Tickets On Sale Now
We hit the road later this month, performing concert versions of “Striking 12″ in various places this holiday season:Oct 26-28 Tacoma, WA
Nov 10 Reading, PA
Nov 16-17 St. Louis, MO
Nov 27-29 College Station, TX
Dec 1 Huntingdon, PA
Dec 7 Burlington, VT
Dec 8 Portsmouth, NH
Dec 27-29 New York, NYTickets are on sale now, and all details are available at www.GrooveLily.com/index2.html?gigs
There WILL be a show on New Year’s Eve! Details coming extremely soon.
3. “Dramatist” Magazine Roundtable On Women Writers (Featuring Val)
Val was delighted to participate in a women writers’ roundtable discussion, led by the esteemed Lynn Ahrens (Ragtime, Once On This Island, Schoolhouse Rock…), for the September/October 2007 issue of The Dramatist Magazine!Read the text here:
www.groovelily.com/newsletters/dramatistroundtable200708.html
4. Ovation Awards Details And Link
SBW is nominated in the following categories:World Premiere MusicalMusical Large Theatre
Direction of a Musical (Jeff Calhoun)
Musical Direction (Brendan Milburn)
Lighting Design Large Theatre (Michael Gilliam)
Sound Design Large Theatre (Eric Snodgrass)
Lead Actress in a Musical (Valerie Vigoda)
Lead Actress in a Musical (Alexandria Wailes)
Supporting Actor in a Musical (Kevin Earley)
Supporting Actress in a Musical (Erika Amato)
For more details and info on the Ovation Awards, go here:
http://www.theatrela.org/ovationaward.asp
And here’s a nice article from Playbill:
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/111309.html