Orange County Performing Arts Center Pays Tribute to Cy Coleman, 12/9 - 12/12

Four of musical theater's brightest talents offer behind-the-scenes tales and the magical music of a true legend in Broadway Up Close and Personal: A Tribute to Cy Coleman. Beloved songs from Cy Coleman's award-winning shows including Sweet Charity, City of Angels and The Will Rogers Follies and songs such as "Witchcraft" and "The Best is Yet to Come" will be performed at the Orange County Performing Arts Center December 9 - 12 in this heartfelt and personal tribute to the life and incredible work of this great American artist. The show features Tony®-winning lyricist David Zippel, who collaborated with Coleman on City of Angels; Center favorite Jason Graae, whose special way around a song has taken him to the Metropolitan Opera, the Hollywood Bowl, Birdland and the Rainbow Room; Jenifer Lewis, who has starred in numerous Broadway productions as well as movies and television and the multi-talented Tami Tappan Damiano, who has appeared on stages all over the world.

Broadway Up Close and Personal: A Tribute to Cy Coleman was created by Michael A. Kerker, ASCAP Director of Musical Theater and producer of Sunday Night ASCAP Songwriters' Series at the Firebird Café in New York. Tickets to Broadway Up Close and Personal: A Tribute to Cy Coleman are $72 and go on sale November 14. They will be available at OCPAC.org, at the Center's Box Office at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa or by calling 714.556.2787. For inquiries about group ticket discounts for 15 or more, call the Group Services office at 714.755.0236. The TTY number is 714.556.2746.

Broadway Up Close and Personal: A Tribute to Cy Coleman
Orange County Performing Arts Center - Samueli Theater
December 9 - 12, 2010
Thursday - Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday at 7 p.m.

Orange County Performing Arts Center - Samueli Theater
615 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, CA
Segerstrom Center for the Arts
Tickets: $72
In person - The Center Box Office
600 Town Center Drive
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Open 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. daily
Online - OCPAC.org
Phone - 714.556.2787
Open 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. daily
TTY number - 714.556.2746
Group Services - 714.755.0236

Cy Coleman had early success in the classical and jazz genres but he decided to build a career in
popular musiC. Coleman collaborated on the classics "Why Try to Change Me Now," "The Riviera," and "I'm Going to Laugh You Right Out of My Life." He also penned "Playboy's Theme." With Carolyn Leigh, Coleman wrote many pop hits, including "Witchcraft," made famous by the Frank Sinatra recording and "The Best Is Yet To Come," which has undoubtedly become one of Tony Bennett's signature songs. Coleman's winning streak as a Broadway composer began when the team of Coleman/Leigh collaborated on Wildcat, which marked the Broadway debut of Lucille Ball. The score included the hit tune "Hey Look Me Over." Up next for the two was Little Me with "Real Live Girl" and "I've Got Your Number."

In 1964, Coleman began collaborating with Dorothy Fields. Their first project was the Broadway smash Sweet Charity. The show was a major success and spawned the showstoppers "Big Spender" and "If My Friends Could See Me Now." Coleman remained prolific throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He composed the score for I Love My Wife (1977) and On The Twentieth Century (1978). Later in the decade, he collaborated on Welcome to the Club (1988) and City of Angels (1989) with Zippel. In the latter, inspired by the hard-boiled detective film noir of the 1930s and ‘40s, he returned to his jazz roots, and the show was a huge critical and commercial success. In the ‘90s there was The Will Rogers Follies (1991), The Life (1997) and a hit revival of Little Me. Shortly before his death in 2004, Coleman returned to his jazz roots, re-forming the popular Cy
Coleman Trio and performing to sold-out audiences throughout New York City.

During his career, Coleman received numerous awards including three Grammys®, four Tonys, three
Emmys and an Oscar nomination. David Zippel has achieved success on Broadway, in Hollywood and the world of pop music. His songs appear on over 25 million albums around the world and he has garnered numerous awards. With Coleman, he made his Broadway debut with City of Angels. He wrote the songs for Disney's Hercules and Mulan and the lyrics to Andrew Lloyd Webber's music for The Woman In White. His Broadway show The Goodbye Girl includes music by Marvin Hamlisch and a book by Neil Simon. Many great singers have performed Zippel's lyrics including Stevie Wonder, Mel Torme, Barbra Streisand, Ricky Martin, 98 Degrees, David Pomeranz, Cleo Laine, Linda Eder, Nancy LaMott, Sarah Brightman, Barbara Cook, Jeffrey Osborne, Elaine Paige and Liza Minnelli.
He has written numerous songs for Barbara Cook including "It's Better With A Band" and original songs for her Broadway and West End concerts. Off-Broadway, Zippel has contributed lyrics to the A...My Name is Alice, Hal Prince's Diamonds and Just So. A revue of his songs also entitled It's Better With A Band played Off Broadway and the Donmar in London. He directed Princesses, which he co-wrote, and conceived and directed The Best Is Yet To Come: The Music of Cy Coleman.

Jason Graae has appeared on and off-Broadway in A Grand Night For Singing; Falsettos; Stardust;
Snoopy!; Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?; Forever Plaid; Olympus on My Mind;
Ragtime; All in the Timing; Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh and many more. Graae made his Metropolitan Opera House debut as featured vocalist in Twyla Tharp's Everlast with American Ballet Theatre and has performed his one-man show all over the country, including at Rainbow and Stars, and Birdland in NYC, Caramoor Music Festival, Wolf Trap, Feinstein's in LA and The Plush Room in San Francisco, to name a few.

On television, Graae has appeared on many shows including Six Feet Under, Rude Awakening, Friends, Frasier and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Movie appearances include roles in Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms, Disney's Home on the Range, On Edge, Gepetto, The Dukes of Hazzard in Hollywood and Awakening of Spring. He has recorded over 40 CDs, including original cast albums, concerts, compilations, and his two solo CDs, You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile - Jason Graae Sings Charles Strouse and Jason Graae LIVE at The Cinegrill (Fynsworth Alley).

Jenifer Lewis' versatile voice, bawdy sense of humor and powerful acting performances were honed
largely on the Broadway stage in such hits as Eubie, Comin' Uptown, Dreamgirls, Rock and Roll, The
First 5,000 Years, and Neil Simon's reprise production of Promises Promises. Lewis also appeared on
stage in Shakespeare in the Park's summer production of Mother Courage and her Children. She
returned to Broadway to play Motormouth Maybelle in the hit musical Hairspray and immediately after, starred in the hugely successful production of Hello Dolly! at the 5th Avenue Theatre. She has appeared in over 60 motion pictures, including Hereafter alongside Matt Damon and directed by
Clint Eastwood, Corinna Corinna with Whoopi Goldberg, Castaway with Tom Hanks, The Antwone Fisher Story, What's Love Got to Do with It, The Preacher's Wife and Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion and Meet the Browns. In television, she appeared in Strong Medicine as well as Boston Legal, Shark and Friends. Lewis wrote and starred in her successful one woman show Bipolar Bath and Beyond.

Tami Tappan Damiano has been performing since the age of 13, from Broadway to the La Fenice Opera House in Venice. She has been seen on Broadway in Cyrano: the Musical and Miss Saigon.
Internationally, she was a soloist with The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber starring Michael Crawford. Tappan Damiano has performed throughout Southern California in shows such as The Merry Widow with LA Opera, Tick...Tick...BOOM! at the Coronet, The Full Monty and Crazy for You at Musical Theatre West, On the Town and City of Angels at Reprise! and The Wild Party for Musical Theatre Guild.

She also performed in a critically acclaimed production of Moving On at Laguna Playhouse. Television appearances include Numb3rs, The Drew Carey Show, Third Rock from the Sun and The Good Doctor: The Paul Fleiss Story. Recordings include Hot Notes, her solo debut with LML Music, The Stephen Sondheim Album and Broadway Sings Paul Simon, both for Fynsworth Alley Records. Tappan Damiano can be heard on Winnie the Pooh Shapes and Sizes and as the singing voice of Cinderella in Disney's DVD, Cinderella III.

Orange County Performing Arts Center:
The Orange County Performing Arts Center presents a wide variety of the most significant national and international productions of music, dance and theater to the people of Southern California. It is
committed to supporting artistic excellence on all of its stages and offering unsurpassed experiences, engaging the entire community in new and exciting ways through the unique power of live performance and an array of inspiring programs.

As Orange County's largest non-profit arts organization, the Center owns and operates the 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall and intimate 250-seat Founders Hall, which opened in 1986, and the 2,000-seat Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, which opened in 2006 and also houses the 500-seat Samueli Theater, and the Lawrence and Kristina Dodge Education Center's studio performance space and Boeing Education Lab. These state-of-the-art facilities are united by a community arts plaza. The Center's Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall and community plaza, along with facilities of the adjacent Tony® Award-winning South Coast Repertory and a site designated as the new home of the Orange County Museum of Art, are located at Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

The Orange County Performing Arts Center presents a broad range of programming each season for
audiences of all ages from throughout Orange County, and beyond, including international ballet and dance, national tours of top Broadway shows, intimate performances of jazz and cabaret, contemporary artists, classical music performed by renowned chamber orchestras and ensembles, family-friendly programming, free performances open to the public from outdoor movie screenings to dancing on the plaza and many other special events. It offers many education programs designed to inspire young people through the arts. These programs reach hundreds of thousands of students of all ages with vital arts-in-education programs, enhancing their studies and enriching their lives well into the future.

The Orange County Performing Arts Center is proud to serve as the artistic home to the region's major performing arts organizations: Pacific Symphony, the Philharmonic Society of Orange County and the Pacific Chorale. For more information, visit OCPAC.org. The Center can also be found online at Blogger, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Flickr.