Alban, Dumeng, Evans & More Lead Cast of LAByrinth's THE MONKEY SHOW

LAByrinth Theater Company (Co-Artistic Directors Stephen Adly Guirgis, Mimi O'Donnell and Yul Vázquez), has announced that the roster of performers for its Annual Spring Benefit will include Carlo Alban, Ivette Dumeng, Bill Evans, Ivan Hernandez, Sal Inzerillo, Andy Karl, Angela Lewis, Mark Linn-Baker, Orfeh, Ina Marie Smith and Mary Testa.

The original musical with book and lyrics by Pulitzer Prize-, Tony Award- and Oscar®-winning scribe John Patrick Shanley will have music by the Oscar®-nominated, Tony and Grammy Award-winner Henry Krieger. The Monkey Show is a musical safari into the fevered hearts of apes in love! Join LAByrinth and our special guest artists to celebrate the animal magnetism of Messrs. Shanley and Krieger!

The one-night-only benefit performance, hosted by Jackie Judd and Peter Picard with co-hosts Jeffrey A. Horwitz and Debbie Ohanian, is set for Monday evening, May 10, 2010 at 8:00pm at The Lucille Lortel Theater (121 Christopher Street).

Obsession and Love & Revenge are just two of the unique theatrical events John Patrick Shanley has created in past years for LAByrinth Theater Company. These one-night-only events have featured Idina Menzel, Christopher Meloni, Orfeh, Yul Vázquez, Mark Linn-Baker, Maude Maggart and many other intrepid artists bringing to life romantic and riotous scenes and songs dreamed up by one of LAByrinth's most inventive artists.

Tickets to The Monkey Show start at $150 with all proceeds benefiting LAByrinth Theater Company's current 18th Season. For tickets go to LABtheater.org or call (212) 513-1082.

John Patrick Shanley (Playwright) is the 2005 Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning author of Doubt, which he adapted into a feature film with Amy Adams, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep. He is a Company Member of LAByrinth, where his plays Dirty Story, Where's My Money?, Sailor's Song and A Winter Party premiered. His other plays include Defiance, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Savage in Limbo, the dreamer examines his pillow, Italian American Reconciliation and Psychopathia Sexualis. As a screenwriter, he has eight movies to his credit, including Live From Baghdad for HBO, for which he received an Emmy nomination; Alive; The January Man; and Joe Versus the Volcano, which he also directed. He won the Academy Award for best original screenplay for Moonstruck.

Henry Krieger (Composer) began composing for Off-Broadway shows, where he met Tom Eyen with whom he created the legendary Broadway musical Dreamgirls for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Score and the 1982 Grammy Award for Best Original Cast Album. Two years later, his musical The Tap Dance Kid (Lyrics by Robert Lorick) opened on Broadway, garnering two Tony Awards. Mr. Krieger's most recent Broadway musical Side Show (book and lyrics by Bill Russell) opened on Broadway to critical acclaim and was nominated for four Tony Awards including Best Score. He received three Academy Award nominations for his new work for the film version of Dreamgirls starring Beyoncé and Jamie Foxx, directed by Bill Condon. He wrote the music for John Patrick Shanley's Romantic Poetry, and his current projects include a new Broadway musical entitled The Flamingo Kid.

LAByrinth Theater Company was founded in 1992 by a group of actors who wanted to create new plays that truly reflected their heritage and experience, and the collaborative spirit of this original ensemble is the foundation of the Company's enduring multicultural and multidisciplinary ethic. LAByrinth today is an inclusive ensemble of 115 established and emerging artists from a wide array of cultural perspectives, committed to the creation of compelling original theater that celebrates the diversity of its home city. In the last 18 years, LAByrinth has won multiple awards and nominations for its work, has developed hundreds of original works of theater, and has premiered 53 new American plays here in New York. Learn more about LAByrinth at LABtheater.org.

Photo credit: Ben Strothmann

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