Bay Area Caberet Hosts Lillas White's Tribute to Cy Coleman, 5/14

Bay Area Cabaret's season finale will star one of Broadway's greatest vocal talents, Lillias White. Returning this spring from Nigeria, where she will reprise her Tony-nominated role in FELA!, White is the winner of Broadway's "Triple Crown" (a Tony Award®, Drama Desk Award®, and an Outer Critics Circle Award) for her role in Cy Coleman's The Life. In her first San Francisco appearance in almost a decade, the powerhouse singer pays tribute to Cy Coleman with her acclaimed one-woman show "My Guy Cy." This concert plays one night only: 8pm Saturday, May 14, 2011 at the Venetian Room of the Fairmont San Francisco (950 Mason Street). Tickets ($45) are available at www.bayareacabaret.org or by phone at City Box Office (415) 392-4400.

Originally performed as part of Lincoln Center's prestigious American Songbook concert, "My Guy Cy" explores the diva's personal and professional history with the famed composer, which began in 1981 when she made her Broadway debut in Barnum. Sizzling with energy, White transforms with every song, from a swaggering and confident "Witchcraft" to a swelling "The Best is Yet to Come," to a climactic "The Oldest Profession," White's famous tour-de-force from The Life, which earned her regular standing ovations when she performed it on Broadway. Other songs include "There's Got to Be Something Better Than This" from Sweet Charity, "On the Other Side of the Tracks" from Little Me, "When in Rome" from Promises, Promises, "The Colors of My Life" from Barnum, and "Those Hands," an ode to a musician's hands from In the Pocket, among many others.

Often described as a blend between Sarah Vaughn and Dinah Washington, Lillias White has been recognized with the Tony Award®, Drama Desk Award®, and The Outer Critics Award® for Best Actress in a Musical for her 1997 role as "Sonja" in the The Life. In 1990 she won The Obie Award® for Best Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of "Hennie" in Romance in Hard Times. In addition, she won The Drama Logue Award® for Best Actress in a Musical for playing "Effie" in the national tour of Dreamgirls. Other theater credits include the Broadway productions of How to Succeed in Business, Once on This Island, Rock n' Roll: The First 5,000 Years, Barnum, Carrie, and Dreamgirls, as well as the off-Broadway productions of Crowns, The Vagina Monologues, Waiting for Godot, The Princess & The Black-Eyed Pea, and Dinah Was. White has also gone on the national and international tours for Ain't Misbehavin', Tintypes, and The Wiz. White's TV and film credits include featured roles in the films Pieces of April, The Grinch That Stole Christmas, Gloria, North, and Disney's Hercules. In 1992, White won an Emmy Award® for her role as Sesame Street's "LillIan Edwards." The singer also has an extensive list of recordings which include cast records and featured vocalist performances. She recorded Dream Girls: The Concert, Too Hot To Handel: The Gospel Messiah, and was featured with Tony Bennett on Cy Coleman's record "It Started with a Dream." She regularly appears in concert at The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center as well as a guest soloist on the PBS specials such as "A Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald" and "In Performance at The White House.

Bay Area Cabaret, the local organization devoted to presenting audiences with top performers who expand the definition of cabaret, concludes its 2010-2011 season at the Fairmont Hotel's historic Venetian Room. Bay Area Cabaret was founded by Marilyn Levinson, a fifth generation San Francisco native and niece of James Schwabacher, Jr., founder of San Francisco Opera's 27-year-old Schwabacher Debut Recital Series, Merola Opera Program and co-founder of San Francisco Performances. Bay Area Cabaret (BAC) is a not-for profit, all-volunteer organization, which presents extraordinary performances in a variety of elegant venues in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through its concert series and wide-ranging outreach activities, BAC aims to expand the definition of cabaret and broaden the audience for intimate entertainment, offering Great American Songbook entries from Harold Arlen and Stephen Sondheim to Jonathan Larson and Stevie Wonder. Past seasons have featured Sutton Foster, Christine Ebersole, Barbara Cook, Maureen McGovern, television actors Michael Tucker and Jill Eikenberry, jazz diva Nnenna Freelon, Karen Mason, Broadway stars Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley, sopranos Patricia Racette and Karen Slack, and multi-platinum songwriter and jazz vocalist Ann Hampton Callaway.

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