Transport Group, the winner of a special 2007 Drama Desk Award and a 2007 Obie Award, will present An Evening With...William Finn & Friends on Monday, June 15th at 7:00PM at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher Street, between Bleecker and Bedford Streets.
Artistic Director,
Jack Cummings III, will host a live interview with Tony Award winner
William Finn. Original cast members from Finn's shows will join to celebrate this truly American voice.
Performers include:
Alison Fraser (two-time Tony nominee for The Secret Garden, and Romance, Romance);
Michael Rupert (Tony winner for Sweet Charity);
Christian Borle (Tony nominee for Legally Blonde);
Mary Testa (two-time Tony nominee for On The Town and 42nd St.);
Heather MacRae (Falsettos,
A Catered Affair);
Janet Metz (Falsettoland, Marie Christine);
Norm Lewis (Drama Desk nominee for
Dessa Rose,
The Little Mermaid); Anne Harada (
Avenue Q, 9 to 5);
Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Drama Desk winner for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee);
Lewis Cleale (Drama Desk nominee for Swinging on a Star, Spamalot);
Sally Wilfert (Make Me A Song, Assassins);
Adam Heller (Make Me A Song, Victor/Victoria);
Celia Keenan-Bolger (Drama Desk winner and Tony nominee for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee); and
Chip Zien (Drama D esk nominee for A New Brain, Falsettos, Into The Woods).
This year's honored guest,
William Finn, is considered to be one of the most original voices in the American musical theatre. A heavily autobiographical writer, his exploration of the gay and Jewish experiences in contemporary America is unparalleled. He is universally revered for capturing the joy and pain brought on by family, sickness, and aging.
William Finn received two Tony Awards (Best Book of a Musical, with
James Lapine, and Best Original Score) for Falsettos. Additionally, he has received numerous awards for In Trousers, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland. Following a post-brain surgery, near-death experience, Mr. Finn penned A New Brain, with a book by
James Lapine. His most recent work, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, was nominated for six Tony awards, winning two. He has loaned his composition talents to various mediums from film and television to Vogue and The New Yorker.
William Finn is a graduate of Williams College where he was awarded the Hutchinson Fellowship for Musical Composition. He is currently an Adjunct Faculty Lyricist/Composer at NYU's Tisch School of Performing Arts.
Tickets are available through
Transport Group's website, www.transportgroup.org or by calling (212)564-0333. Reserved VIP seats may be purchased for $100 and general admission is $45.
Founded in 2001,
Transport Group, under the leadership of
Jack Cummings III, Artistic Director, and
Lori Fineman, Executive Director, is a not-for-profit theatre company that develops and produces work by
American Playwrights and composers with the aim of exploring the American consciousness in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Transport Group presented its premiere production in 2002:
Thornton Wilder's Our Town, which featured older actors in the roles of Emily and George and a twelve-year-old girl as the Stage Manager. Its second production, Requiem for William, an evening of seven seldom produced plays by
William Inge, that featured a cast of 26 as well as original songs, premiered in 2003. In 2004 the company presented the first New York revival of
Michael John LaChiusa's First Lady Suite, which received rave reviews, played to sold-out houses, and earned two Drama Desk20Award nominations including outstanding revival of a musical. Recent productions include the world premiere of the musical The Audience, which featured a cast of 46 actors and earned three Drama Desk Award nominations, including outstanding musical; Normal, a new musical about a mother's battle to save her daughter from anorexia; cul-de-sac, a new play by Tony Award nominee
John Cariani; the first New York revival of
Tad Mosel's Pulitzer Prize play, All the Way Home; the 50th anniversary, Obie-winning production of
William Inge's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, the world premiere musicals Crossing Brooklyn and Marcy in the Galaxy, and the first New York revival of
Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead. Both First Lady Suite and Bury the Dead were filmed for the New York Performing Arts Library's Theatre on Film and Tape Archive.
Transport Group is the winner of a special 2007 Drama Desk Award for its "breadth of vision and its presentation of challenging productions."
An Evening With...
William Finn & Friends takes place Monday, June 15th at 8:00pm at the
Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher Street, between Bleecker and Bedford Streets (1 train to Christopher Street/Sheridan Square Station and head west on Christopher Street; theatre is located on the north side of Christopher Street). Tickets are $45 and $100, and are available at www.transportgroup.org or by calling (212)564-0333. Visit www.transportgroup.org for more information on
Transport Group Theatre Company and its special
William Finn event.
