While 2020 has been an unusual year, the holidays are still a great time to celebrate. At 5 p.m. Sunday, December 20, Adelphi University's Performing Arts Center (PAC) will present "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year," a seasonal show for the whole family.
The production will feature a talented cast of Broadway and cabaret performers, livestreaming the music and magic of the season directly to homes from Adelphi PAC's Westermann stage. The cast includes award-winning vocalists Natalie Dougals, Lorinda Lisitza and Scott Coulter together with Broadway stars Kelli Rabke, Jessica Hendy and Alex Getlin. Music director John Fisher will be at the piano.
The show, a collaboration with RJ Productions and Spot-On Entertainment, is part of the Live From Adelphi Concert series. The series is produced by Bronx native and RJ Productions President Rich Aronstein, award-winning vocalist Scott Coulter and PAC Executive Director Blyth Daylong.
Admission is $20. For more information on the series and to purchase tickets, see adelphi.edu/the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year-live-from-adelphi
Cast bios:(Click on cast member's name to see their publicity photo)
Jessica Hendy is widely recognized as one of Broadway's best belters. Her numerous Broadway credits include starring roles in Cats (Grizabella), Elton John's Aida (Amneris) and Amour. She has toured the US and Canada in both Cats (Grizabella) and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Narrator). Her one-woman musical "With Beckett" has a score by Richard Oberacker and Rob Taylor (Bandstand) and is currently in a pre-Broadway workshop. In New York, she garnered rave reviews for her one-woman cabaret, A Life to Call Your Own, and received a Bistro Award for her cabaret debut in the musical comedy revue Get Your Tickets Now. She played Diana Goodman in the regional premier of the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Next To Normal at The Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati. Her performance as Jeanne in The Great American Trailer Park Musical at ETC earned her an ACCLAIM Award for best actress. Hendy has had the pleasure of working at many theaters around the country including Pittsburgh CLO and North Shore Music Theatre where she starred in Miss Saigon (Ellen) and the Helen Hayes Performing Arts Center in Songs for a New World with the Tony-winning Jason Robert Brown at the piano.
Hendy regularly performs with leading symphony orchestras around the world in a variety of concerts and musical celebrations and travels the country as featured vocalist in several concert events including Broadway Today! and Cinema Toast: The Music of the Movies. She is a proud graduate of the University of Cincinnati, Conservatory of Music.
Kelli Rabke got her "big break" playing the role of Dorothy in Paper Mill Playhouse's acclaimed production of The Wizard of Oz. Shortly thereafter, she was handpicked by Andrew Lloyd Webber to play the lead role of the narrator in the Broadway revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Following that, she played her dream role: Eponine in Les Miserables on Broadway. She went on to perform in regional theaters across the country in such roles as Mabel in Mack and Mabel, Christine in The Phantom of the Opera, and back to Paper Mill Playhouse in Stephen Schwartz's Children of Eden as Yonah. She is one of the only Broadway stars to originate a role in both a Stephen Schwartz and an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical - a distinction for which she is incredibly honored. She has been seen and heard in TV commercials and voice-overs, and was the voice of several animated characters, including Kat in the Discovery Channel Kids series Kenny the Shark. She also played the recurring role of Bernadette on The Young and the Restless. Her proudest accomplishments to date are her son Joseph and daughter Abigale.
Rabke's time on the board of the BergenPAC in Englewood, New Jersey, led to the development of the Kidz Cabaret series, the BeyondMusic program of instrumental lessons and her personal favorite: Music Speaks - an early childhood music education class for infants through four-years-old. She has sung on numerous CD's for Music Speaks and served as producer and creative director for Beyond the Storm- a Hurricane Sandy relief concert that raised money for local towns hard hit by the storm. At NYC's historic Town Hall she has been seen in numerous concerts including Broadway Originals and Broadway Unplugged.
Rabke was the headliner for the Broadway on the Boardwalk concert in Ocean City, New Jersey, and performed at Broadway Ballyhoo at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. Her solo cabaret debut, No Place Like Home, had its NYC premier at Feinstein's 54/Below. Her concert work has taken her all over the world and she couldn't be happier.
Internationally acclaimed vocalist Natalie Douglas has been honored with 10 MAC (Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs) Awards, two Nightlife Awards, two Backstage Bistro Awards, and a Broadway World Cabaret Best Vocalist Award. The Times (UK) says Douglas is "a true force of nature," and "in a league of her own" and has been called "simply everything" by The New York Daily News. This nightclub diva's portrait has joined the illustrious collection of legendary musicians on Birdland's Wall of Fame. Her ongoing residency there is the award-winning "TRIBUTES," an SRO monthly series celebrating a different artist each month. Recent tributes have included Nina Simone, Elvis Presley, Dame Shirley Bassey, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Cher, with upcoming concerts celebrating Nat "King" Cole, Barbra Streisand, Roberta Flack, Miss Nancy Wilson, Joni Mitchell and more. She has played Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, both The Rose Theater and The Appel Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Cafe Carlyle and has appeared at many performing arts centers and clubs across the country.
Douglas is also a London favorite, playing at The Crazy Coqs and The Pheasantry cabarets, earning two five-star reviews from The Times (UK). She has appeared across Europe and South America with her Dr. Nina Simone tribute, "To Nina..." Douglas is much sought after in her role as a Master Teacher with The Mabel Mercer Foundation. As a performer she has been awarded both its Margaret Whiting and the Donald F. Smith Awards, whilst also appearing in over 30 MMF Cabaret Conventions in New York, London, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, The Hamptons & Palm Springs.
Her critically acclaimed third album, "Human Heart," has won multiple awards. She also has two other CDs, "To Nina...Live At Birdland" & "Not That Different." A favorite of broadcasters, her music is often featured on NPR, Sirius XM Radio & BBCLondon Radio.
Douglas has a bachelor's degree from USC in psychology, theatre and women's studies and holds a master's degree from UCLA in psychology and theatre. See more atwww.nataliedouglas.com.
Alex Getlin is a New York-based singer and actress whose voice can "melt stone" (Ben Brantley, The New York Times). Most recently, Getlin made her Carnegie Hall debut with Michael Feinstein in "Hooray for Hollywood," as part of his Standard Time series. A native New Yorker, she has spent the last year performing around the country in concert tributes to Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Elton John, Paul McCartney and Andrew Lloyd Webber with Spot-On Entertainment. She has appeared Off-Broadway in the company of Anything Can Happen in the Theatre - The Songs of Maury Yeston, after being hand-picked by Yeston to interpret his music. In June 2017, Getlin made her symphonic debut with the Pasadena Pops under the baton of Michael Feinstein in Broadway: The Golden Age where she starred alongside Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey.
In August of 202 she starred in the much-lauded Berkshire Theatre Festival production of "Godspell." Previously she played Fiona in Shrek, the Musical, at the Berkshire Theatre Group's Colonial Theatre and appeared in the company's production of The Music Man. Television credits include CBS' "Shades of Blue" and Netflix's "The Break with Michele Wolf."
Lorinda Lisitza is an award-winning singer and actress originally from Porcupine Plain, Saskatchewan. In New York, she has performed Off-Broadway as a member of the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre where she starred as "Mother Courage" to rave reviews and has appeared in several installments of The York Theatre's "Musicals in Mufti" series. As a vocalist, she has been a part of The Town Hall's historic "Broadway by the Year" series and is a founding member of the Joe Iconis Family with whom she regularly performs in cabarets and nightclubs throughout NYC for a devoted cult following. She has won three MAC Awards, a Bistro Award and a Nightlife Award for her work in cabaret and received the prestigious Patrick Lee Independent Theater Blogger Award for her one woman show, Triumphant Baby!, written by Joe Iconis and Robert Maddock. As a singer-songwriter she is half of the award-winning duo, The Ted and Lo Show, with Ted Stafford. Lisitza has appeared on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," plays a mean harmonica and is an avid Texas Hold'em player. She is thrilled to be in Canada getting to sing at home for her family and friends.
Scott Coulter is one of New York's most honored vocalists. For his work in cabaret, he has received five MAC Awards (Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs), five Bistro Awards and two Nightlife Awards for Outstanding Vocalist. He and has performed at most of NYC's top rooms including Birdland, 54 Below, The Oak Room at the Algonquin and Feinstein's at The Regency where he spent a record-setting eight months performing the revue 11 O'Clock Numbers At 11 O'Clock which he also co-created, directed and musically arranged. His self-titled debut CD won the 2003 MAC Award for Outstanding Recording and was chosen as the best recording of the year by TheatreMania and Cabaret Scenes magazines. Coulter was director and star of A Christmas Carol: The symphonic Concert in its world premiere with the Baltimore Symphony and reprised his performance in the Emmy-nominated PBS production, which premiered in December 2013. He was an Emmy nominee himself for his performance in American Song at NJPAC. Scott regularly performs in concert both as a solo artist and with a variety of legendary performers including Stephen Schwartz, Tony-winner Ben Vereen and Grammy-winner Sheena Easton and has performed with symphonies all over the world including San Francisco, Baltimore, Seattle, Phoenix, Detroit, Winnipeg, St. Louis and Calgary.
Since 1997, Coulter has performed with award-winning songwriting duo Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich in their many award-winning revues. While singing with Goldrich and Heisler he was discovered by Oscar and Grammy winning composer Stephen Schwartz who then invited him to join the revue Stephen Schwartz & Friends. That revue (starring Schwartz and Coulter along with Liz Callaway and Tony Award-winner Debbie Gravitte) has been performing all over the world since 1999. Schwartz has said, "One of the greatest things that can happen to a composer is to have his music interpreted by Scott Coulter."
Coulter is creator, arranger and director of several touring shows (symphonic and non-) including Music of The Knights, The Wonderful Music of Oz, Blockbuster Broadway! and, for The ASCAP Foundation, Herry Herman: The Broadway Legacy Concert. As a director, his credits include many shows for The Town Hall in NYC and Broadway By The Way for The Berkshire Theatre Festival and Broadway by the Bay. Along with Michael Kerker and ASCAP, he's a regular producer/director of Michael Feinstein's Standard Time at Carnegie Hall. Coulter recently wrote the book for the new musical Got To Be There which celebrates the life and music of songwriter Elliot Willensky.
He is founder/owner of Spot-On Entertainment and Spot-On Arts Academy and is a resident director of programming at 54 Below (Broadway's Supper Club) in New York City. He is the artistic director of the Pocono Mountains Music Festival and a proud graduate of the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
John Fischer
John Fischer has been a music director and pianist in New York City for the past two decades. Most recently, he music directed the sold out run at Feinstein's/54 Below for Tony Award winner Alice Ripley and Tony nominee Emily Skinner's cabaret show, Unattached, in addition to the live CD recording of the show. He spent six seasons as the music director for the highly acclaimed musical theatre program at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires. For the past eight years, John has served as music director for the Broadway's Rising Stars and Broadway Originals concerts at Town Hall. He is also a regular fixture at Feinstein's/54 Below, music directing everything from Sondheim to Schwartz, in addition to the award winning 55 Sings series (Applause, Mack & Mabel, Kiss of the Spiderwoman).
Other New York credits include pianist for the recent Broadway revival of West Side Story, pianist/conductor for Talk of the Town (Bank Street Theatre), Take Me Along (Irish Rep) and Naked Boys Singing (New World Stages), Associate MD: Africa and Plumbbridge, Expresso Trasho NY Fringe Festival, Broadway Backwards II & III (American Airlines Theatre).
His regional music director credits include Hello Dolly, Funny Girl, The King and I, Gypsy, No No Nanette, The Pirates of Penzance, Peter Pan and Oliver, among others. Fischer has had the pleasure of working with such well-known artists such as Judy Collins, Kate Winslet, Mickey Dolenz, Jennifer Holiday, Michele Lee, in addition to scores of Broadway performers. He has been on staff as a music director or accompanist for Applause NY, AMDA, HB Studios, The New School, The Growing Studio and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.
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