Olney Theatre Presents "I'm Wild About Eubie"

Olney Theatre Center will be staging an updated version of Eubie!, the musical revue highlighting Baltimore native James Hubert "Eubie" Blake's musical legacy. "Blake's music celebrates the African American community's contribution to changing what American music was," says Director/Choreographer and Broadway veteran Tony Parise.

Eubie! plays on the New Mainstage March 28th - April 29th with a special Pay-What-You-Can Preview on Tuesday, March 27th at 7:30 pm. Tickets are just $25 - $46 with discounts available to groups, seniors, and students. All kids are ½ price (for most seats)! In addition, Olney offers several special performances that include sign interpretation, audio description, and post-show discussions.

Parise (credits include choreographing the opening number of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Bernadette Peters' Carnegie Hall and Radio City debuts, and directing a segment for Jack Lemmon's The Kennedy Center Honors) was hand-picked by original Eubie! Conceiver/Director Julianne Boyd to lead the Olney production. "My approach to this revue is brand new. Julianne told me to breathe new life into this show, and that is what I plan to do."

The original version of Eubie! debuted on Broadway in 1978. The cast, featuring the Hines brothers, enchanted Broadway audiences for over a year. In revisiting the piece, Parise is bringing the show up to date. "In the costumes and even some of the musical transitions, the stamp of the late 70s was all over the show. I wanted to update Eubie! by bringing out the purest elements of the ragtime era."

Parise restructured the flow of the piece to make it more than just a vaudeville revue. The first act will begin with a 1920s bordello aesthetic (where an 11 year old Blake began his professional career, lying that he was 15 in order to be admitted), featuring songs such as "Charleston Rag" and ends in gospel sentimentality with "Roll Jordan." The second act will have more of a fifties elegance and highlight songs such as "Memories of You" (thought to be Blake's favorite), and "I'm Just Wild About Harry," which is arguably his most popular.

The musical harmonies and levels will be layered by Musical Supervisor Bruce W. Coyle, who has worked on Olney's1995 production of Jacques Brel"¦, among others, and performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Concert Hall. "I want the audience to have no choice but to have a good time"¦. I think that seeing and hearing not only the cast, but also the band, will give us that electricity" remarks Parise. Musical Director, Christopher Youstra (recent Olney credits include Cinderella, Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well & Living in Paris, and Anything Goes), will lead a deft and tight four-piece band who will be positioned on stage above the action.

The show will feature a multilevel set that was inspired by the form of a musical staff. "The early 20th century is a great time to design"¦.it's an interesting transitional period from Victorian to Art Deco" says Scenic Designer Daniel Conway. Costume Designer Nanzi Adzima will create exciting period pieces that range from 1920s showgirls to high couture glamour of the 50s. Rounding out the stellar design team are Lighting Designer Charlie Morrison who last designed The Foreigner for Olney and Sound Designer Jarett C. Pisani who just finished The Constant Wife with Olney.

Carefully chosen from across the country, the well-rounded cast includes many local favorites. Devron T. Young was last seen at Olney in Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well & Living in Paris, Peter Pan, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Devron was also a member of National Players Tour 49 and is a graduate of The Baltimore School for the Arts and The University of Maryland at College Park. Musical theater veteran, educator, song writer, and recording artist, Roz White Gonsalves is a graduate of Duke Ellington School of the Arts and Howard University. Loretta Giles has a career that spans opera, Broadway, symphonic and oratorio concerts, TV co-host, radio and recording artist, producer, and vocal technician.

Her Broadway credits include The King & I with Yul Brenner, Sophisticated Ladies with Gregory Hines, and Porgy & Bess. A graduate of the Virginia Governor's School for the Arts and Howard University's Musical Theatre Department, LC Harden Jr's regional credits include Petite Rouge and Seussical the Musical at Imagination Stage and Cats, Ragtime, and Godspell at Toby's Dinner Theatre. Kara-Tameika Watkins' local credits include Andrea in Once on this Island at Round House Theatre and Storyteller in Children of Eden at Fords' Theatre.

Joining the area talent are four singer/dancers from around the country. A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, Fredena J. Williams' favorite theater credits include Effie in Dreamgirls, Nell in Ain't Misbehavin', and BJ in Smokey Joe's Café. D. William Hughes is a New York City native who has toured the U.S. and abroad with Miss Saigon, Big River, Cinderella, and The Civil War. A Lynchburg, VA native, Carole Denise Jones' favorite roles include Arda in Arda, Festival of the Lion King at Walt Disney World, and Soon of a Mornin' at New York Musical Theatre Festival. Randy Aaron has performed on Broadway as Testednarone in Dame Edna: Back with a Vengeance and in the national tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Born in Baltimore in the 1880s, James Hubert "Eubie" Blake was a musical-pioneer who went on to become one of the most popular ragtime composers of his era, and one of the more influential musicians of the 20th century. Although he was mainly known as a songwriter for Broadway shows in the 1920s, he became an icon as last living link to ragtime. Blake wrote his first rag, "The Charleston Rag," in 1899, and by 1915 he had teamed up with singer/composer Noble Sissle in Vaudeville. Sissle and Blake wrote music for the 1921 hit show Shuffle Along (the first successful all-black musical).

More than three decades later, in 1969, Eubie Blake reappeared on the scene after a long hiatus, with a double LP (The Eighty-Six Years of Eubie Blake) that amazed listeners. Into the 1970s, Blake became a very popular performer, playing and singing ragtime-era pieces, charming audiences, making new records, running his own label (Eubie Blake Music), and appearing on Broadway in the 1978 musical revue of his work, Eubie!. James Hubert "Eubie" Blake continued performing until the last moths of his life. He died in 1983, five days after the celebration of his 100th birthday.

Olney Theatre Center is pleased to announce many exciting partnerships in conjunction with this production. Eubie! is made possible in part through our production partners: The Afro-American Newspapers, NAACP Montgomery County, and The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum. -- www.olneytheatre.org

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