Christine Toy Johnson, Jason Collins, Sarah Corey, Piper Goodeve, Whitney Kam Lee, Mark Mozingo, Jose Restrepo and Darcy Yellin Set for SOUVENIR STORIES, 7/27-31 at the Clurman Theatre

Christine Toy Johnson Photo by Bruce Alan Johnson

Christine Toy Johnson, Jason Collins, Sarah Corey, Piper Goodeve, Whitney Kam Lee, Mark Mozingo, Jose Restrepo and Darcy Yellin will perform in SOUVENIR STORIES: Eight Original Short Works from Prospect’s 2011 Musical Theater Lab from July 27-31, 2011, in the Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd St. in New York.

Helmed by Dev Bondarin, SOUVENIR STORIES: Eight Original Short Works has musical direction by Daniel Feyer, and is curated by Cara Reichel and Dev Bondarin.

The performance schedule for SOUVENIR STORIES is Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday @ 8pm and Sunday @ 3pm. For Tickets ($18 + $1.25 theater restoration fee) CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE or call 212-239-6200 or 800-432-7250 or visit the Theatre Row Box Office – 12pm until 8pm daily.

Prospect’s 2011 Musical Theater Lab explores how simple objects can capture our memories and hold our meaningful experiences. During the month of June, eight writing teams were challenged to create short musicals inspired by randomly selected souvenirs, a watch, a margarita glass, a coin, a bar of soap… and more! The writing teams include Melanie Bean & Betsy Hulick, Jonathan Breit & Greg Edwards, Phillip Chernyak & Blake Hackler, David Finkle & Ned Paul Ginsburg, John Herin & Frederick Alden Terry, Eric March, Susan Murray & Clay Zambo, Jay Alan Zimmerman.

Souvenir Stories – Writer Biographies
Melanie Bean has composed for theater, film, modern dance and instrumental chamber groups, in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a background in acting, she is developing several musical theater projects. Member: Dramatists Guild and Actors’ Equity. Attended the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.

Jonathan Breit is a composer and pianist living in New York City. Recent compositions include The Rivals (BMI, Lively Productions), written with Greg Edwards, The Senator and the Slave Girl (Yale University), and The Awkward Stage (Golden Fleece series), written with Leah Maddrie. Recent work as pianist and music director includes A Fine Romance (92nd Street Y), The Gay Ivy (Hot Fest at Dixon Place), BJ: A Musical Romp (Planet Connections Festivity), and Jurassic Parq: The Broadway Musical (Fringe Festival). He holds degrees from Yale College and Mannes College of Music.

Phillip Chernyak is a songwriter and filmmaker whose musical short films have been screened in Stockholm, Los Angeles, and everywhere in between. By day Phil works as a television editor, cutting shows for MTV, Discovery Channel, History Channel and more. He is currently a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in New York City.

Greg Edwards Book and Lyrics: The Rivals (Lively Productions), The Discontented Grasshopper (Center Theatre), Taking the Plunge (Samuel French OOB Festival, NYMF), songs with Marvin Hamlisch (White House, Mr. Hamlisch’s holiday tour). Plays: Crowded House (State Theatre of Chicago), Everaftering (78th Street Theatre Lab, Acting Out). Games: Jessica Plunkenstein and the Düsseldorf Conspiracy (PC Gamer UK, NYT Best Adventure Game), The Judgment of Quintus (in development). Ebb Award (2nd place 2010). Yale (Phi Beta Kappa), BMI. www.greged.com

David Finkle is a New York City-based lyricist. He began his Manhattan writing career contributing to Julius Monk’s Plaza-9 revues and Ron Warren’s Upstairs at the Downstairs revues.

Ned Paul Ginsburg has earned composing honors from the NEA, NARAS, IAJE, SGA, and Downbeat magazine. Commissioned theater pieces include They Chose Me and Fashion Statement for TADA!, A Talmud Tale for Maqom, and Arnie!, The TV Musical for Silver Burdett Ginn. With David Finkle: Kiss Me Guido and The Love Report. Recent collaboration: Boynton Beach Club (w/Colby & Seidelman). Musical theater workshops: BMI, ASCAP, and New Dramatists. Ned orchestrates other theater composers’ music, happily.

Blake Hackler Member of the BMI/Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Writing Workshop; 2010 participant of the Dramatist Guild Intensive; 2009 recipient of the Harrington Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre Writing. Plays and musicals have appeared in New York and Chicago. MFA, Yale School of Drama. He holds faculty positions at Yale University and the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU.

John Herin is a bookwriter, lyricist, and percussionist. He has frequently collaborated with composer Frederick Alden Terry. Their creations include an opera, Ethan Frome, and three short musicals for Prospect Theater Company, AVAC Memories, Improvisation, and CindeRelativity. Their rock musical, The Passion of George W. Bush, co-authored with Adam Mathias, premiered at the New York International Fringe Festival in 2004. John attended Brown University and the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at N.Y.U./Tisch.
Betsy Huliick AEA actress, prize-wining translator, and writer with a strong interest in Russian language and literature. Her translations include Chekhov’s major plays and vaudevilles (Bantam World Classics), narrative poems by Alexander Pushkin (Fence, Cardinal Points), and Gogol’s Inspector General on Broadway. Fellowships at Yaddo, the VCCA, Ragdale, among others, and several residencies abroad. Past member of the BMI lyricists’ workshop. This is her second collaboration with Melanie Bean, with whom she worked last year on Bible Cabaret.

Eric March is a composer, lyricist, and playwright whose work has been performed at Ars Nova (Songs About Real Life), FringeNYC (Granola: The Musical) and many tiny bars (Many Other Things). He is a member of Youngblood, Ensemble Studio Theatre’s group for emerging professional playwrights and the BMI Musical Theater Writing Workshop. His latest musical, The Bone Wars (with Jeff Bienstock and Patrick Link,) was the recipient of an EST/Sloan commission in April, 2011.

Susan Murray is a member of the BMI Workshop, (Advanced and Librettists) and a two-time recipient of the BMI Jerry Harrington Award, Susan’s collaborating with Clay Zambo on Greenbrier Ghost, a new musical based on a little-known 1879 murder case which won ANMT’s Award for Best Emerging Musical (2009) and premiered at Spirit of Broadway (Norwich CT) in 2010. Susan co-wrote the song “My Thing” (with Martin Fernandi) which was recently published in the first BMI Workshop Songbook.

Frederick Alden Terry received an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU. His music has been featured in theater, concert halls, dance, and film, including Prospect Theater Company, and FringeNYC. He has written several projects with John Herin, including their opera, Ethan Frome, and AVAC Memories, featured in Roosevelt Island ’s Fast Trash exhibit in 2010 at in Prospect’s Map Quest in 2009. He is also writing Divine Sarah with Robert Michael Morris, and contributing to The Unfortunate Squirrel by Sonya Sobieski.

Clay Zambo wrote music and lyrics for Greenbrier Ghost (Susan Murray, book, Spirit of Broadway Theatre, CT) and Post Modern Living (Richard Sheinmel, book, LaMaMa), included in the anthology Plays and Playwrights 2011, as well as over a dozen musicals for family audiences. Lyrics: A Mother’s Carol (with Scott Ethier), winner American Composer’s Forum’s choral-writing competition, recorded by VocalEssence, and is published by Boosey & Hawkes; also Shlemiel Crooks, Merkin Hall NYC. Forthcoming: Windjammers, In the Minds of Olympians (Stages Festival 2011). Member: BMI, Dramatists Guild. Alumnus: Ohio University HTC.

Jay Alan Zimmerman is composer/author of several musicals including his Incredibly Deaf Musical (O’Neill Center finalist, The Duke on 42nd St./NYMF 2010), My Cafe Cinderella (Arts & Artists), Smokin’!, The Madness Channel, and the award-winning short film musicals Pawns and Love Burns. Other projects: Art/Song (chashama Times Square), the plays Booth and Our Brutus (Edinburgh Fringe Fest winners), JAZ @ The Zipper (Zipper Factory Theatre), and Roboticus, a musical started during a residency with LEMUR musical robots. www.musicbyJAZ.com.

Other Articles by Lia Chang:
Lia Chang Theater Portfolio at Library of Congress Features Photos of Thom Sesma’s Makeup Transformation as Scar in Disney’s The Lion King Las Vegas, Robert Lee and Leon Ko’s Heading East Starring BD Wong, David Henry Hwang’s Chinglish, and Samrat Chakrabarti and Sanjiv Jhaveri’s Bakwas Bumbug! on View Through August 2
Photos: André De Shields leads the cast of Charles Smith’s Knock Me A Kiss at The National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, NC, 8/2-8/4
Photos: “How To Succeed” stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rose Hemingway & John Larroquette at Lord & Taylor Fifth Ave
Photos: Phylicia Rashad, Michael McElroy, Marva Hicks in Broadway Inspirational Voices “Wondrous Grace” Concert in NY
Photos: David Duchovny, John Earl Jelks, Amanda Peet, Tracee Chimo at Opening Night Party of Neil LaBute’s Break of Noon
Multimedia: Exclusive photos and video of Disney’s The Lion King Las Vegas -In the Makeup Chair with Thom Sesma
Multimedia: Promises, Promises’ Stars Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes at Lord & Taylor Fifth Ave
Click here for the Lia Chang Articles Archive and here for the Lia Chang Photography Website.

Lia Chang Photo by Brianne Michelle Photography

Lia Chang is an actor, performance and fine art botanical photographer, and an award-winning multimedia journalist. As a photographer and videographer, Chang has been documenting her colleagues and contemporaries in the arts, fashion and journalism since making her stage debut as Liat in the National Tour of South Pacific, with Robert Goulet and Barbara Eden. Chang currently plays Nurse Lia on “One Life to Live”.

Chang’s portraits and performance photos have appeared in Vanity Fair, Gourmet, German Elle, Women’s Wear Daily, The Paris Review, TV Guide, Daily Variety, Interior Design, American Theatre, Broadwayworld.com, Life & Style, OUT, New York Magazine, InStyle, Timeout.com, Villagevoice.com, Playbill.com, Theatermania.com, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Boston Globe, New York Times and Washington Post.

Selections of Chang’s archive of Asian Pacific Americans in the arts, fashion, journalism, politics and space are now in the newly created LIA CHANG THEATER PORTFOLIO in the ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN PERFORMING ARTS COLLECTION housed in the Library of Congress Asian Division’s Asian American Pacific Islander Collection. A former syndicated arts and entertainment columnist for KYODO News, Chang is the New York Bureau Chief for AsianConnections.com. She writes about culture, style and Asian American issues for a variety of publications and this Backstage Pass with Lia Chang blog.

Lia Chang Photos: The Working Theater’s HONEY BROWN EYES by Stefanie Zadravec at The Clurman

Edoardo Ballerini Photo by Lia Chang

The New York premiere of The Working Theater’s Off-Broadway production of HONEY BROWN EYES by Stefanie Zadravec – winner of the Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play in 2009 at Theater J in Washington, DC, has performances January 9 – February 6, 2011, at the Clurman Theatre (410 W. 42 St.) on Theater Row in Manhattan.

Erica Schmidt – whose numerous credits include directing the musical The Burnt Part Boys at the Vineyard Theatre and New York Stage and Film, as well as Lorenzo Pisoni’s multiple award-winning Humor Abuse at Manhattan Theatre Club – directs HONEY BROWN EYES.

Daniel Serafini-Sauli and Kate Skinner Photo by Lia Chang

The cast of HONEY BROWN EYES features Edoardo Ballerini (Corky Corporale on “The Sopranos,” “Dinner Rush,” “Romeo Must Die,” “Boardwalk Empire”), Daniel Serafini-Sauli (“You Belong to Me,” “United 93″), Sue Cremin (“Killing the Boss”), Gene Gillette (“Lieutenant of Inishmore”), Beatrice Miller (Ridley Scott’s “Tell Tale,” “Toy Story 3″), and Kate Skinner.

HONEY BROWN EYES kicks off the 26th season of the Working Theater – dedicated to developing and producing plays Off-Broadway for and about working people. Past productions – earning numerous Drama Desk Award nominations and one Drama Desk Award, along with three Audelco Awards – include Exit Cuckoo by Lisa Ramirez and directed by Colman Domingo, the award-winning Tabletop, King of Shadows and Hold Please.

Sue Cremin and Edoardo Ballerini Photo by Lia Chang

HONEY BROWN EYES is Ms. Zadravec’s play about how the lives of two friends – both members of a rock and roll band when they were young – are intertwined anew as they find themselves on opposite sides of the war in Bosnia, one a militiaman, the other a Muslim resister. With the lives of loved ones at stake, HONEY BROWN EYES – set in two kitchens during the notorious 20th-century conflict in the former Yugoslavia — depicts not only the day-to-day toll war takes on families and communities, but the far-reaching effect of American pop culture on people half a world away.

Edoardo Ballerini and Gene Gillette Photo by Lia Chang

In addition to HONEY BROWN EYES - which has been published by “American Theatre” magazine – Ms. Zadravec’s other plays include the Baltimore Playwrights Festival Award-winning Save Me, along with The Fear Project (The Barrow Group) and 167 Tongues (Theater 167). She is a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a member of the Women’s Project Lab and has been awarded a Playwrights Realm Fellowship for 2010-11.

HONEY BROWN EYES has set design by Laura Jellinek, lighting design by Jeff Croiter, sound design by Bart Fasbender, and costume design by Emily Rebholz.

Kate Skinner and Daniel Serafini-Sauli Photo by Lia Chang

The performance schedule for HONEY BROWN EYES is Tuesdays at 7 pm, Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 pm, with matinees Saturdays at 2 pm and Sundays at 3 pm. Tickets are $25 – in keeping with Working Theater’s policy of keeping Off-Broadway admissions more affordable for working class people and their families. Reservations can be made by calling Tele-charge at 212 239 6200 or online at www.telecharge.com.

Working Theater has two “pay what you can” matinees at 2 p.m., on Saturdays January 15 and 22. Tickets are available day of performance, subject to availability, at the Theatre Row box office, open daily noon to 8 p.m. at 410 W. 42 St. in New York. Click here the meet the cast of HONEY BROWN EYES.

About WORKING THEATER
Founded in 1985, the Working Theater’s mission is to produce plays for and about working people. Working Theater believes that theater should not be a privilege or a luxury, but a staple, striving to make play-going a regular part of the cultural activities of working people who may not be able to afford commercial theater or who feel that it does not resonate with their lives and experience. Toward that goal, the company offers stories that reflect a diverse population of the working majority, acknowledging their complexity and often-denied power in an increasingly complex world. By creating theater of interest to working people and by bringing this constituency to its productions, Working Theater aims to change the composition of New York’s theater audience to reflect a full range of socio-economic diversity.. In a nation that is frequently divided by cultural and class distinctions and where economic disparity continues to widen, Working Theater is committed to making theater that can bridge those divisions, expanding the reach of theater’s impact to all people, uniting us in our common humanity. Over the years The Working Theater has commissioned and produced more than 70 world premieres of culturally diverse new plays.

Related HONEY BROWN EYES Articles:
Timeoutny.com Review: Honey Brown Eyes
New York Times Review: Honey Brown Eyes
Nytheatre.com review: Honey Brown Eyes
backstage.com review: Honey Brown Eyes
theatermania.com review: Honey Brown Eyes
citysbest.com: Honey Brown Eyes Review
newjerseynewsroom.com review: Honey Brown Eyes looks at Bosnian Horrors
New York TheatreGuide.com Off –Broadway Photo Feature: HONEY BROWN EYES
broadwayworld.com: Photo Flash: Honey Brown Eyes
The Theater J Blog: Honey Brown Eyes

Other Articles by this Author:
Lia Chang Photo Slideshows of Productions in the Working Theater’s 25th Anniversary Season
Multimedia: Photos of Ed Cardona, Jr.’s American Jornalero at the Dorothy Strelsin Theatre
Multimedia: Photos of André De Shields in Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: From Douglass to Deliverance
Click here for the Lia Chang Articles Archive.

All text, graphics, articles & photographs: © 2000-2011 Lia Chang Multimedia. All rights reserved. All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Lia Chang. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content. For permission, please contact Lia at liachang@hotmail.com.

Lia Chang

Lia Chang is an actor, a performance and fine art botanical photographer, and an award-winning multi-platform journalist.

As a photographer and videographer, Lia collaborates with artists, organizations and companies in establishing their documentary photo archive and social media presence. She has been documenting her colleagues and contemporaries in the arts, fashion and journalism since making her stage debut as Liat in the National Tour of South Pacific, with Robert Goulet and Barbara Eden.

This year, selections of Lia’s archive of Asian Pacific Americans in the arts, fashion, journalism, politics and space will become part of newly created LIA CHANG THEATER PHOTOGRAPHY PORTFOLIO in the ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN PERFORMING ARTS COLLECTION housed in the Library of Congress Asian Division’s Asian American Pacific Islander Collection.

Lia’s portraits and performance photos have appeared in Vanity Fair, Gourmet, German Elle, Women’s Wear Daily, The Paris Review, VIBE, TV Guide, Daily Variety, Interior Design, American Theatre, Broadwayworld.com, Life & Style, OUT, New York Magazine, InStyle, Timeout.com, Villagevoice.com, Playbill.com, Theatermania.com, thelmagazine.com, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe, New York Timesand Washington Post. A former syndicated arts and entertainment columnist for KYODO News, Lia is the New York Bureau Chief for AsianConnections.com. She writes about culture, style and Asian American issues for a variety of publications and this Backstage Pass with Lia Chang blog.