Mister D: I like to refer to him as The Diva’s Diva!!! 🙂
Lea Salonga Makes Carnegie Hall Debut, Nov. 7
by BWW News Desk
Lea Salonga, who won a Tony Award for Miss Saigon, will perform in concert at Carnegie Hall (57th St. and Seventh Ave.) on November 7th at 7 PM. Directed by Richard Jay-Alexander, it will be the petite performer’s debut at the landmark concert hall, and proceeds will benefit Diversity City Theater Co..
Salonga, who was last seen on Broadway in the 2002 revival of Flower Drum Song, received a bouquet of awards for her Broadway debut in Boublil and Schonberg’s Miss Saigon, including the Olivier (she had previously performed the show in London), Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World Awards. She can be seen as Eponine on the 10th anniversary concert video of the same team’s Les Miserables; she also played the lovelorn waif on Broadway. To non-theatregoers, she is best known for providing the singing voices to two Disney heroines–Jasmine in Aladdin and Mulan.
A native Filipina, she has starred in numerous shows in her home country. Her credits in the Phillipines include Annie, Baby, The Sound of Music, Into the Woods, Paper Moon, The Goodbye Girl, The Fantasticks, They’re Playing Our Song, The Rose Tattoo, My Fair Lady and Proof. Salonga has been performing since childhood. She appeared in The King and I at the age of 7 and her first album Small Voice (recorded when she was 10) received a gold record. Salonga has also appeared on the soap opera “As the World Turns.”
Having begun as an actor, Jay-Alexander is probably best known for his association with Producer Cameron Mackintosh, having served as Executive Director of Mackintosh’s American company for ten years, running its day-to-day operations in North America. He was both Associate Director and Executive Producer of the original Broadway, touring and Canadian companies of Les Miserables, staging more than a dozen productions of that Musical. The Phantom of the Opera followed, and then Miss Saigon, for which he was Executive Producer for the original Broadway, touring and Canadian companies. He also served as Executive Producer and Associate Director for Broadway’s Five Guys Named Moe and was Executive Producer of its Grammy-nominated original cast recording. He produced recordings for Bernadette Peters (Live from Carnegie Hall, Loves Rodgers and Hammerstein, both Grammy-nominated), Johnny Mathis (On Broadway) and Mary Cleere Haran (Pennies from Heaven, the Memory of All That), and has directed concert productions for Bette Midler (Kiss My Brass tour), Barbra Streisand (Timeless Farewell Tour), Ricky Martin, Jane Monheit, Polly Bergen, Sam Harris, Hayley Westenra, Russell Watson (The Voice) and Peters, the latter two having also been telecast on PBS. He also helmed the multi-media extravaganza, Storm, at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, the workshop productions of the Broadway-bound musical based on Great Expectations (starring Cloris Leachman) and A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop (starring Amy Irving).
For more information, visit www.carnegiehall.org
NYP
Liz Smith
August 9, 2005
Amy Irving stars next spring in “A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop” by Marta Goes. Irving plays the Pulitzer-Prize winning poet, Bishop, who had a 20-year relationship with Brazil’s great architect Lota de Macedo Soares.
Richard Jay Alexander, who helped mount the last Midler and Streisand tours, directs.
Think ahead and subscribe to these three plays for only $130. Call (212) 279-4200.
