Steven Lutvak Returns To The Duplex Friday April 29

By: BWW News Desk Apr. 19, 2005

The Duplex Cabaret Theatre is proud to welcome acclaimed composer STEVEN LUTVAK back to their stage. This special one-night-only concert event will feature Steven's most recent compositions, as well as the beloved standards that have endeared him to a loyal following at The Duplex and in venues throughout the country.

The concert will take place on Friday, April 29 at 7pm. The Duplex Cabaret Theatre is located at 61 Christopher St., in the heart of New York's West Village. For tickets, please contact Smarttix at www.smarttix.com or 212.868.4444. There is a $20 cover charge, as well as a two-drink minimum. No one under 21 will be permitted, and credit cards are accepted.

Composer, lyricist, singer and musical director Steven Lutvak is one of the most exciting musicians on the New York scene today. Profiled in Time Magazine's People To Watch column, Steven most recently won his second award from the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation, and is, in fact, the first artist to have won two of these prestigious grants. This award was granted for his work on his new musical, Kind Hearts and Coronets, which he is writing with Emmy-nominated bookwriter and co-lyricist, Robert L. Freedman. Eight Musical Moments from Kind Hearts and Coronets was presented in New York in October, and again in January, with an all-star cast of Broadway performers: Nancy Anderson, Melissa Errico, Raul Esparza, Malcolm Gets, Sean Allan Krill and Rebecca Luker.

As a performer, Steven has performed to sold-out audiences across the country, beginning with Seems To Me It's Time, an evening of original songs which was part of Steve McGraw's Equity Fights AIDS Cabaret Series. This was followed by sold-out runs at such prestigious New York venues as the Russian Tea Room and The Algonquin Hotel's Oak Room and the Rose Garden and Gardenia clubs in Los Angeles. In 1998, he made his debut at Carnegie Recital Hall, and in November 1999, debuted at Carnegie Hall, performing with Skitch Henderson and the New York Pops. In 1994, he headlined with Broadway's Dee Hoty at New York's Rainbow and Stars. Lutvak has performed in four of the Annual Cabaret Conventions at Town Hall; in 1994, their songwriters' night was named after his My View Of You From the Piano, which he performed with Linda Lavin. In 1997, he sang at the annual New Year's Eve Concert at St. John the Divine before an audience of over 5,000. He opened ASCAP's new Songwriter Series at the Firebird Cafe, playing, once again, to sold-out houses. He sold out his October 2002 concerts at Joe's Pub, as well as four follow-up evenings in March 2003, to celebrate the release of his spectacularly reviewed CD, The Time it Takes, on Pemaco Rd. Records. Steven won the first annual Johnny Mercer Foundation Emerging American Songwriter Award (1992), a Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Grant for his work in the theatre in 1999, and again in 2005, and two Bistro Awards (1993 and 1998). Lutvak was 1998's only two-time MAC Award Winner, for Outstanding Special Material (The Dinner Party) and for Outstanding Singer/Instrumentalist. He had previously won the MAC Award for Song of the Year in 1994 for his song Inside My Body Is A Dancer. Steven has been the
recipient of an ASCAP Award annually since 1984.

As a composer/lyricist for the theatre, Lutvak was commissioned by the Harmony Project of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre to adapt A.R. Gurney's The Wayside Motor Inn, for which project he was named Artist-in-Residence at the Eugene O'Neill Opera Music/Theater Conference. Along with screenwriter Robert L. Freedman, he was commissioned by the American Music Theater of San Jose to compose Campaign of the Century, which was presented in a concert version as the closing event of the Chicago Humanities Festival, starring Tony-Award winner Michael Rupert, this past November.

Steven received a New American Work grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for his musical Esmeralda, which premiered in 1995 at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. His musical Almost September premiered in 1992 at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and was subsequently produced at the Missouri Repertory Theatre, and was honored with eight Bay Area Critics' Circle Awards and seven Drama-Logue Awards for its run at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, California (1993-1994). Lutvak also scored Off-Broadway's Hannah Senesh, which was nominated for a Drama Desk Award, and was later produced at the Zephyr Theatre in Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Theatre Company, the Baltimore Center Stage, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and most recently at Penguin Repertory Theater. The production also toured throughout Canada and Israel. Other works of his have been performed at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, La Mama ETC, Weill Recital Hall and at the New York Shakespeare Festival.

During the 1994 Toronto Summer Arts Festival, a revue of Steven's songs was presented as part of Garth Drabinsky and Live Entertainment of Canada's New Voices Series. His first film score was for The Starlit Symphony, starring Philip Bosco, which screens daily at the Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum. He recently completed co-composing the score to Standard Time, an independent film starring Andrew McCarthy and Eartha Kitt, which has played at The Maryland Film Festival, The San Diego Film Festival, the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival, The Austin Film Festival, The Greenwich Film Festival, The Palm Springs Film Festival, The Victoria Independent Film Festival (where it won the Audience Favorite Award), The Santa Barbara Film Festival, The Memphis Film Festival, the Boston Film Festival, The Hollywood Underground Film Festival and the Palm Beach Film Festival. Under the new title Anything But Love, this film will open nationally this September, and will be distributed by The Samuel Goldwyn Company. Most recently, Steven supplied the theme song for the movie Mad Hot Ballroom, which was the subject of a bidding war at this year's Slam Dance Festival in Utah, and which was ultimately bought by Paramount Classics. Mad Hot Ballroom will be seen again at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Berlin Film Festival, before opening nationally.

Steven is also known as one of New York City's most sought-after vocal coaches. His clients include many of the top names on Broadway, including Jane Krakowski, Ron Rifkin, Linda Lavin, Debra Monk, Donna Murphy, Michael York and Marisa Tomei, as well as many of the current singers and dancers working in Broadway shows.

Apart from his work as singer/songwriter and composer/lyricist for the theatre, this multi-talented artist has worn a number of other hats. He recently performed one of the lead roles in a pre-Broadway workshop of Mancini. He was also brought in by lyricist Sheldon Harnick and composer Michel Legrand to play a role in a recording of their new musical, L'amour Fantome.

Steven worked as musical consultant on Tim Robbins' hit film The Cradle will Rock, working with Hank Azaria, John Turturro and Emily Watson, and served as the original musical director and orchestrator for Noel and Gertie, starring Twiggy, at the Bay Street Theatre. He also served as both vocal coach and vocal arranger for Laurie Anderson's Moby Dick.

Steven Lutvak resides in Manhattan.

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Steven Lutvak Returns To The Duplex Friday April 29

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