Bay Street Theater to Host A CONVERSATION WITH JOEL GREY

Bay Street Theater is pleased to announce A CONVERSATION WITH JOEL GREY, June 11 at 5 pm. Tickets are $20 and available online at www.baystreet.org or by calling the Bay Street Theater Box Office at631-725-9500, open Tuesday through Saturday 11 am to 5 pm. The Box Office will be open 7 days a week beginning Memorial Day weekend.

The evening will include Joel Grey reading selections from his memoir, 'Master of Ceremonies'. Bay Street Artistic Director Scott Schwartz will also lead a conversation with the legendary actor about his distinguished life and career.

Joel Grey, the Tony and Academy Award-winning Master of Ceremonies inCabaret, finally tells his remarkable life story. Born Joel David Katz to a wild and wooly Jewish American family in Cleveland, Ohio in 1932, Joel began his life in the theater at the age of 9, starting in children's theater and then moving to the main stage. He was hooked, and his seven decades long career charts the evolution of American entertainment - from Vaudeville performances with his father, Mickey Katz, to the seedy gangster filled nightclubs of the forties, the bright lights of Broadway and dizzying glamour of Hollywood, to juggernaut musicals like Cabaret, Chicago, and Wicked.

Master of Ceremonies is a memoir of a life lived in and out of the limelight, but it is also the story of the man behind the stage makeup. Coming of age in a time when being yourself tended to be not only difficult but also dangerous, Joel has to act both on and off the stage. He spends his high school years sleeping with the girls-next-door while carrying on a scandalous affair with an older man. Romances with to-die-for Vegas Showgirls are balanced with late night liaisons with like-minded guys, until finally Joel falls in love and marries a talented and beautiful woman, starts a family, and has a pretty much picture perfect life. But 24 years later when the marriage dissolves, Joel has to once again find his place in a world that has radically changed.

Drawing back the curtain on a career filled with show-stopping numbers, larger-than-life stars and even singing in the shower with Bjork, Master of Ceremonies deftly captures the joy of performing as well as the pain and secrets of an era we have only just started to leave behind. Joel's story is one of love, loss, hard-won honesty, redemption, and success.

Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts is a year-round, not-for-profit professional theater and community cultural center which endeavors to innovate, educate, and entertain a diverse community through the practice of the performing arts. We serve as a social and cultural gathering place, an educational resource, and a home for a community of artists.