We just heard about the premiere of the new musical Glimpses of the Moon. This Jazz Age musical (based on the Edith Wharton novel) will have its world premiere Monday, January 21 at the famed Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel for an eight-week run (through March 10th), with performances every Monday at 8 p.m.
Set in 1922, an age of anything but innocence, Glimpses of the Moon follows the jazzy whirl of Manhattan society, from champagne-soaked dinner parties to luxurious vacation cottages. With plenty of friends, but little money, Susy Branch and her friend Nick Lansing devise a clever scheme to live beyond their means. They'll marry and live off the wedding gifts, while they help one another trade up to suitable millionaires. The plan works perfectly – until they fall in love.
It stars Patti Murin (Susy) & Stephen Plunkett (Nick).
The show is directed by Marc Bruni (Assoc. Director of Legally Blonde and Grease) and features a terrific cast of six. The music is composed by John Mercurio. Book and lyrics by Tajlei Levis.
Each performance will also showcase a special guest in a star turn as a cabaret singer from the 20's. Tony-nominee Liz Larsen is scheduled for the January 21st opening. Tony-winner Alison Fraser joins the cast on March 10th. And soap star Susan Lucci on Feb 25!
For tickets, please call (212) 419-9331 or email: BMCGURN@algonquinhotel.com
Parker Society member Sue Bachner's band, Ether Park, has a new video out. We have the world debut of "Where's Jeffrey?" right here. Watch Jeffrey attempt to finally "come of age" at the prom, in spite of his extremely worried Mom, and his fellow Chess Club members.
There is another production in Pennsylvania of Algonquin Round Table material this month. What is it with the Keystone State and the Twenties? We got a note from playwright Michael Gerhardt that his new show The Vicious Circle will be at the Footlighters Theater, 58 Main Avenue, Berwyn, PA 19312.
The show is January 18, 19, 25, 26. From a press release:
“Another exciting world premiere from the celebrated author of last year's The Lincoln Affair. Presented as a staged reading, this new play covers the lives of 3 famous authors, members of the (in)famous Algonquin Round Table, over a two-decade span in the 1920's and 1930's, as they observe with their biting wit and sharp intelligence the changes in the world around them. Or has it really changed at all?”
The cast: James Reese, (Frank Case), Ray Engler (Aleck Woollcott), Don Gimpel (Robert Benchley), and Annette Traci (Dorothy Parker).
Tickets: $15 each. For reservations, call (610) 296-9245. Show schedule:
Friday, January 18, 8 p.m. Saturday, January 19, 8 p.m. Friday, January 25, 8 p.m. Saturday, January 26, 8 p.m.
There are also shows on Thursday with reduced price for guest of member, and 2 PM Sunday matinees (but no dates are listed on their web site for these shows).
The Dorothy Parker Society is taking part in a community service project that helps New York City schoolchildren. It begins Tuesday, January 8. If you want to participate, contact Kevin Fitzpatrick, president of the DPS. The program is with the Police Athletic League at the Duncan Center. The first meeting will be begin on Tuesday, Jan. 8. It is 6-7:30. Directions to the center are below. We are calling the program Second Tuesday. Going by the public school calendar, and we can meet:
The program is for kids first grade through fifth grade. Some of them, even in the fourth grade, read on a first grade level. The center has an education director who will match you up with a child, one on one. The center does have reading material, but if you want to bring your own books or materials, that is fine.
We have about a half dozen who are coming from the Parker Society, which I think is a great start. We can of course go out for a drink afterwards. If you want to invite a friend to come with you, please do.
London's Dorothy Parker fans will get the chance to hear one of America's brightest theater talents singing a Parker-penned song. Kristin Chenoweth, the Tony award-winning star who made her name as Glinda in the original Broadway cast of Wicked, is to make her English National Opera debut in a new co-production, with Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and La Scala in Milan, of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide. Chenoweth will play the part of Cunegonde in the production which opens at the London Coliseum for a limited season of 13 performances from 23 June.
Candide tells the story of a young man, Candide, who is determined to follow his instructor's creed of mindless optimism. Even after being banished from his homeland, captured by Bulgarians, beaten by the Spanish Inquisition, robbed of everything he owns, and torn repeatedly from the woman he loves, Candide still clings to the philosophy that everything is for the best in this, "the best of all possible worlds." He and his friends eventually find themselves seeking guidance from the Wisest Man in the World - a ghost from their past who has a surprising revelation for them!
Based on Voltaire's novel, Candide first opened on Broadway in 1956 at the Martin Beck Theatre, starring Barbara Cook. Despite the names involved, the musical only ran for 73 performances. A 1997 Broadway revival at the Gershwin Theatre, where Wicked is currently playing, starred Jim Dale and Andrea Martin. The musical features music by Leonard Bernstein, and a book adapted by Hugh Wheeler, then adapted again by Robert Carsden and Ian Burton. The lyrics are by Richard Wilbur with additional lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, John Latouche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker and Leonard Bernstein.
Chenoweth has already previously sung the role of Cunegonde in a New York Philharmonic production of Candide. She has also starred in New York in The Fantasticks, Scapin, Steel Pier, A New Brain, Epic Proportions, Strike Up the Band, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, and The Apple Tree. She won a Tony Award for her performance as Sally Brown in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and has recorded two solo albums. She makes her Metropolitan Opera debut in March 2010 as Samira in John Corigliano's The Ghost of Versailles.
Joining Chenoweth in the cast of this British premiere is Toby Spence in the title role. Full casting is to be announced at a later date.
We just heard about the premiere of the new musical Glimpses of the Moon. This Jazz Age musical (based on the Edith Wharton novel) will have its world premiere Monday, January 21 at the famed Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel for an eight-week run (through March 10th), with performances every Monday at 8 p.m. 
