Jim Dale Joins Theatre Museum Advisory Committee

Tony Award-winner Jim Dale has joined The Theatre Museum Advisory Committee, a group of professionals who provide advice in areas of expertise, assist with projects and lend their names to organizational endeavors.  He joins fellow Broadway performers Theodore Bikel, Tovah Feldshuh and Jamie deRoy.

Jim Dale will also once again serve as master of ceremonies for the Awards for Excellence Gala, at which The Theatre Museum honors individuals and  organizations that have made special contributions in the areas of theatre arts educations and theatre history preservation. Dale was master of ceremonies for the 2006 Awards for Excellence Ceremony.  This year's gala will be held on October 29, 2007 at the Hudson Theatre in the Millennium Broadway Hotel in Times Square.

Jim Dale has had a varied career with auspicious beginnings.  He was the youngest comedian in the British Music Halls at age seventeen-and-a-half.  He was a successful pop singer under the wing of Sir George Martin, producer of the Beatles' records. And he joined the British National Theatre as a leading actor in 1970 at the request of Sir Lawrence Olivier.

Dale's work on and off-Broadway includes The Threepenny Opera, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Candide and Address Unknown.  In addition to his Tony Award for Barnum, he has won five Tony Nominations, four Drama Desk Awards,  four New York Critics Awards and the Lucille Lortel Award.

To millions of children, Jim Dale is the voice of Harry Potter, having recorded all six books in the series.  As a result, he holds two Guinness
Book of World Records –  "Occupying the first six places in America's top ten Audio Books 2005" and "Creating a total of 134 different character voices for one audio book, Harry Potter and Order of the Phoenix."

On The Theatre Museum Advisory Committee, Mr. Dale also joins designers William Ivey Long and Jeff Davis, directors Scott Ellis, Linda Masson-Kingsley, Ph.D. and Michael Kantor, producers Rocco Landesman and Bonnie Comley, stagehand John Lofgren, education consultants Linda B. Leff, Flora E.S, Kaplan Ph.D., and Louis Rachow, journalist Sherry Eaker, non-profit advisor Ted Berger, and attorneys Richard F. Bernstein, Andrew  Levy and Tracy Reilly.

Founded in 2003, The Theatre Museum is New York State's first and only chartered, non-profit museum dedicated to the history of theatre. It is a museum-at-large presenting exhibitions in collaboration with other cultural  institutions. The Museum's programs include community outreach, such as teaching children how to write, direct and stage live theatre, and the annual Theatre Museum Awards for Excellence Ceremony.  Its primary mission  is to preserve, protect and perpetuate the legacy of theatre through innovative programming.

Photo of Jim Dale by Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.