PRESS RELEASE
For further information, call: Bob Bowersox at 302-540-6102

For the February 7 issue of KONKLIFE – COVER STORY

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TENDERLY: The Rosemary Clooney Musical: Delightful, Enchanting, and Very Real

Spoiler Alert: Don’t expect the Red Barn’s new show “Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical” to be one of those jukebox musicals where a long-gone star of yesteryear is reanimated by a talented actor who fills the evening rendering a string of dusty tunes.

Oh, there are songs a-plenty, to be sure, sung by a very talented songstress, but this is most certainly not a simple string of golden oldies. What it is, is an exquisite portrait of a woman whose grace and voice were the perfection of elegance and professional success in her day, while her private life devolved into a shambles of alcohol and drug addiction, philandering husbands, and personal tragedy. But as with all great stories, her resurrection from her dark times leaves us elated, cheering, and moved.

It is, in the end, what you might call a “play with music”. But it is so much more than that.

“Tenderly” opens Tuesday at the Red Barn and runs through March 16. It stars the multi-talented Kim Schroeder Long as Rosemary, who has flown in to play the role, supported by Key West’s David Black, who plays a multitude of different characters who figured prominently in Clooney’s life. The play is directed by the Red Barn’s Joy Hawkins. All curtains are at 8 pm.

“Her story’s pretty compelling,” Long said. “Superficially, it’s the music, of course, but it turns out to be so much more than that. The songs just help tell the story. There’s a lot of profound truth about the human condition and experience that we get to mine through that story. That’s what’s most satisfying to me.”

Written by Janet Yates Vogt and Mark Friedman, “Tenderly” takes us deep into the life of Rosemary Clooney, who found success across many fields – recordings, movies, television, and concerts. Using songs as touchstones, the imaginative script moves back and forth through more than 30 years of the singer’s life. It looks at her challenging childhood – abandoned by her family, and forced to be responsible for her siblings at a young age; at her early success; and at the betrayals and tragedies that she had to walk through while trying to maintain that “my life is perfect” image that celebrities are expected to show us.

The play opens in a rehab facility in 1968, after Clooney has had a nervous breakdown, a product of her addictions to pills and alcohol, stress, and the loss of her best friend, Robert Kennedy – she was just a few feet from him the night he was assassinated. She talks through her life’s moments with a psychiatrist – one of the many roles Black inhabits, and the play takes off from there, using Clooney’s many hits to draw us through her life’s moments—both the up’s and the down’s.

The music’s wonderful – songs you’ve heard but may not have attributed to Clooney: her big hits like “Come On-A My House”, “Mambo Italiano”, “This Old House”, “Straighten Up And Fly Right”, “Hey, There”, and “Tenderly” are joined by those she garnered in later life when she emerged from the dark times as a respected jazz singer – “I Remember You”, “Have I Stayed Too Long At The Fair”, and many more.

“I think the music and the story blend perfectly,” Long said. “I think a lot of times we look at celebrities and their problems as something only celebrities have, but with Rosie, her struggles were very essentially human. She struggled with her identity as Rosie the person and Rosie the star, as many of us do with who we are and how that’s different from the way we’re perceived by others. I’m glad that people leave the show thinking, wow, that was really true about me too.”

Musical accompaniment for the show will be provided by an extraordinary band, made up of Jim Rice on piano, Joe Dallas on bass, and Daniel Clark on drums.

Tickets for “Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical” can be had by visiting redbarntheatre.com/tickets or calling 305-296-9911. There will be a catered reception following the Opening Night performance on February 19 and ticketholders for that evening are invited to join the cast and crew. And there will be a Talkback Session with the cast and director after the performance on Friday, February 22. The audience that night is encouraged to remain and discuss the play.

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PRESS RELEASE
For further information, call: Bob Bowersox at 302-540-6102

For the DECEMBER 6 issue of PARADISE

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WITH BELLS ON: A Christmas Story with Balls

Canadian playwright Darren Hagen doesn’t really like Christmas all that much. So he didn’t really mean to pen a Christmas play.

“Well, it’s not quite like a Christmas play,” Hagen said recently, “but yet it is…there’s Christmas music playing in the elevator.”

Wait, wait. Elevator?!? Okay…let’s rewind a minute and start at the beginning.

“With Bells On” is Hagen’s newest play, which will have its American Premiere at the Red Barn Theatre in Key West for a four week run, December 11 through January 5. It stars Trey Gerrald and Don Bearden and will be directed -- and maybe more anticipated – costumed by Key West’s unequaled man with a needle and thread, Christopher Peterson.

The elevator is just that, and it’s the only thing on the stage. And it’s stuck between floors. Ted (Bearden) appears to be a short, quiet, emotionally unassuming, dweeb accountant who has entered the elevator in his not-so-luxurious apartment building, where he’s been living since his recent divorce. Standing next to him – or maybe “towering” over him would be more appropriate – is Natasha (Gerrald), a six-foot-seven-inch (in heels) drag queen dressed like a Christmas Tree, who is completely beside herself because this stalled elevator will cause her to miss her chance to be crowned Christmas Queen in the holiday pageant at the Magic Crystal Palace downtown.

If you’re thinking this is a perfect set-up for some hilarity, you’d be correct. You’re going to laugh a lot. The juxtapositioning of two such opposite characters in such a situation is full of comic possibilities, and Hagen takes complete advantage of them all. The puns and comic lines fly fast and furious, as Ted and Natasha try to find a way to extricate themselves from circumstances neither of them is comfortable in.

But the play is about more than that. Because Ted is not the sadsack milquetoast we initially think him to be, nor is he a prig or homophobe. He actually grows curious about the exotic creature he’s met. And this interest begins to work some magic on an initially hostile Natasha.

Says Hagen: “It’s ultimately about creating a common ground among seemingly opposite strangers – not just between the two characters on stage, but across cultural and age barriers in the audience as well.”

Peterson agrees. “What appeals to me the most is that it brings together two of my most favorite things in Key West: nervous men and drag queens.” (Big laugh) “And how a friendship can come out of something as strange as two completely different kinds of people thrown together in a weird situation.”

So, yeah, it’s a holiday show…there’s the Christmas music in the elevator and all. And it’s a very funny premise, very funnily written. But “With Bells On” is so much more than that. As Peterson put it: “The play ultimately encompasses our motto here in Key West – One Human Family.”

And the costume for Natasha?

“Oh, wait until you see it,” Peterson said, a note of pure joy in his voice. “She lights up like a Christmas tree – because she’ll be dressed like one, balls and all!”

Tickets for “With Bells On” are available now at redbarntheatre.com/tickets or by calling 305-296-9911. There will be a Reduced-Price Preview on Monday, December 10 and Opening Night ticketholders on December 11 will be invited to the Opening Night Party in the courtyard of the Red Barn, where they can mingle with the cast and crew. For more information, visit redbarntheatre.com or the Red Barn’s FaceBook page, Red Barn Theatre KW.

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