Concert Gala Featuring Broadway Hits to Aid Area Stage Company Moving Fund

The addictive, inspiring art of musical theater - and some of its most beloved songs - will be featured in a benefit concert for Area Stage Company and Conservatory. In 5'6", 7, 8 - Lamentations of Two Broadway Bound Showgirls, accomplished performers Rebecca Ashton and Carolina Ordoñez, backed by a group of budding young ASC artists, will perform new and classic Broadway hits, while relating the ups, downs and comic misadventures of performing, auditioning and teaching.

All proceeds from the April 7 concert will benefit ASC's moving fund. The beloved theater and conservatory must leave its longtime home at the Riviera Theater in Coral Gables at the end of the next season. The non-profit organization, which has, for almost 30 years, produced critically acclaimed productions and provided an unparalleled theatrical education to thousands of Miami-Dade students, is currently seeking a new, permanent home.

Ashton and Ordoñez will mix anecdotes about the performer's life with cherished classics from The Sound of Music, West Side Story and Annie Get Your Gun, and contemporary favorites from Rent, Wicked and Chicago. They'll be joined by nine ASC students ages 11 to 14, performing numbers from Grease, Disney's On the Record and the Rodgers and Hammerstein cannon. Sixteen-year-old Isabella Peña, one of ASC's brightest talents and a local favorite, will lead the group in This is Me, the exuberant, viral hit song from the movie The Greatest Showman; Peña's music video rendition of the song, featuring students from ASC's Inclusion Theater Program (ITP), was recently included in the ABC's Academy Awards broadcast.

The two leading ladies boast an array of theatrical experience. The newest member of ASC's teaching faculty, Ashton, a former member of the Santa Monica Playhouse Repertory Theater and recent music theater BFA graduate of the University of Oklahoma, has performed leading roles in My Fair Lady, Beauty and the Beast, and A Chorus Line. Ordoñez, who boasts a BFA from the New World School of the Arts and an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, recently returned to her native Miami from New York City, where she performed original solo work in venues including Dixon Place, The Duplex, and the Broadway Comedy Club.

Overseeing 5'6", 7, 8 as musical director is University of Miami theater faculty member Gregory Brown, whose extensive resume as arranger, orchestrator, musician and musical director includes The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on Broadway, the national tour of Monty Python's Spamalot, and renowned venues including the Manhattan Theatre Club, The Atlantic Theater, the New York Musical Theatre Festival, and many more.

For almost 30 years, Area Stage Company, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, has staged award-winning, provocative, world-class theater productions. ASC has continuously presented a mix of contemporary plays, original new works, and classic musical theatre repertoire. As part of their mission to educate the next generation of theatre artists and patrons, they continually debut emerging, cutting-edge artists in the worlds of theatre, music, dance, and comedy. ASC now houses a professional theatre company, a professional-level conservatory for young, aspiring performers, and a theatre program catering to the special needs of individuals with developmental disabilities.

Tickets: $10 - $25 at areastagecompany.com or 305-666-2078

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