“King Island Christmas” Returns to NYSTI December 4-18

Written by Gail M. Burns - November 2009

Broadway veterans return to posts as director and set and light designers

TROY –NYSTI is bringing back its well-received 2005 holiday show, King Island Christmas, to the stage of the Schacht Fine Arts Center from December 4th through December 18th. Broadway and Hollywood director/choreographer Patricia Birch directs the production which is based on the illustrated children’s book of the same title, written by Jean Rogers with illustrations by Rie Muñoz. The libretto for the stage adaptation was written by Deborah Brevoort, and the music composed by David Freedman.

The King Island Christmas Story
In the Bering Sea, located off the coast of Alaska just south of its westernmost point, is King Island, a one-mile wide island which was once home to a tiny village of 150 Inupiaq Eskimos. Each year the island was closed off by the winter ice and the inhabitants were dependent on the last ship of the season to bring them provisions and their priest to celebrate Christmas and stay with them for the winter.

In the story, Father Carroll was due to arrive on the North Star but when the freighter arrived the sea was too turbulent for the villagers’ walrus-skin boat, an oomiak, to safely travel out to the ship. The community had to improvise. They decided to take their oomiak over the mountain and meet the ship on the lee side of the island where the water was calmer. Everyone joined in to make the treacherous trip a successful one. The oomiak was able to get out to the freighter and bring back Father Carroll along with his chest of provisions for the winter.

Beautiful music brings the spirit of community alive in this simple, joyful tale based on an inspiring true story of what people can achieve when they work together.

From True Story to Storybook to Musical
In the winter of 1951-52, artist Rie Muñoz worked as a teacher on the island and later told the remarkable true story to her friend Jean Rogers about the huge effort the tiny community had taken to be sure they had their priest on the island for Christmas. Together the two women created the children’s book, King Island Christmas.

In 1991, Alaskan playwright Deborah Brevoort told Jean Rogers that whenever she read the book she heard it “sing”. A week later when Ms. Brevoort was leaving to pursue her career on the east coast Ms. Rogers gave her a copy of the book to remind her of the story and the idea of making it a musical.

It sat on her shelf for years as she wrote and studied but after a year in New York University’s Tisch School’s Musical Theatre program she got the idea of doing it as an oratorio and “the musical opened up for me. I knew exactly how to do it.” Her agent got a deal with a publisher that gave her three years to find a composer, write the show and get it produced. Many composers she approached weren’t interested, two others didn’t work out and with five months to go on the contract a friend suggested that she needed a, “good Jewish composer” without any Christmas baggage and recommended someone who happened to live in Ms. Brevoort’s neighborhood and was free the next day. David Friedman’s musical ideas matched the “singing” she had heard in her head all those years ago and the musical “poured out of both of us”. An old friend from Alaska’s Perseverance Theatre happened to visit as she and David were beginning their work and committed to produce the show based on the first four bars of music. She made her contract and the show received an enthusiastic reception upon its opening.

Ms. Brevoort and David Friedman won the 1997 Frederick Loewe Award for Musical Theatre and the 1998 Dramatists Guild Award for King Island Christmas. A cast album was produced in 1999 by twelve-time Grammy winner Thomas Z. Shepard.

The Players
Guest Artist David Tass Rodriguez is returning to NYSTI to play Father Carroll from his debut turn as Brom Bones in the season opener A Legend of Sleepy Hollow. He has a B.F.A. in Acting from the Conservatory of Theater Arts & Film at S.U.N.Y. Purchase and is a graduate of the New York State Summer School of the Arts. He has been working as a Producing Artistic Associate for Stageworks on the Hudson, Inc. and served as Program Director for Summerstage, Stageworks’ innovative theater arts program for young people. As an actor he has been working locally with Stageworks, Proctors Theater, Half Moon Theatre, Up in One Productions, Center Stage, Rhinebeck Theater Society, and The Gilbert & Sullivan Musical Theater Company. His credits include: Bud Davenport in the regional premiere of Gutenberg! The Musical!, Billy Flynn in Chicago, Gaston in Beauty & The Beast, Psuedoles in A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, KoKo in The Mikado, Fred Graham in Kiss Me Kate, and Billy Bigelow in Carousel. David also works with the developmentally disabled at a group home of the Devereux Foundation.

Guest Artist Paul Carter returns to NYSTI to play village leader Ooloranna and the narrator from his turn as the conductor in last season’s Orphan Train. A Hudson, NY native and Bard College alumnus, Paul has worked in the NY theatre scene in various productions at such venues as: The Met, La Mama, Theater for the New City, Riverside, Shakespeare, Soho Rep and Westbeth Theatres to name a few. Paul has also enjoyed playing supporting roles on several daytime television dramas including: One Life to Live, All My Children, Loving, and Another World. National and international tour credits: McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), Jesse Owens in Olympic Spirit, Hud in the 20th Anniversary Tour of Hair, The Musical, and The Fox in Pinnochio (all continental US and Canada). Other favorite roles: Joe in Big River (Yorktown Performing Arts), Private Megs in Strange Snow (Shadowland Playhouse), Mohammed in Omnium Gatherum (Stagework /Hudson), and Coalhouse Walker Jr. in Ragtime (Taconic Performing Arts Center). Paul’s performing experience also includes a stint as a featured vocalist for Regency Cruise Line’s Broadway Spectacular and Manhattan Latin revues.

Company Member Shannon Johnson reprises her role as Little Eir’s Mother. She was most recently seen as Mrs. Gardinier in the season opener A Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Ms. Johnson works both on and off-stage at NYSTI, working as NYSTI’s Advertising Director and having appeared in seventeen productions including Orphan Train, American Soup, Idiot’s Delight, A Wonderful Life, and Miracle on 34th Street.

Guest artist Sam Stuto returns to NYSTI to play Little Eir after his debut in last season’s Orphan Train. Sam played the role of Charlie Bucket in the RPI Young Actors Guild production of Willy Wonka, Jr. and the King of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland for the Missoula Children’s Theater at Proctors. He was the White Rabbit in Follow that Rabbit in the sixth grade musical at Loudonville Elementary School. He has also previously appeared in various shows for the Calvary United Methodist Church theater group, Kings Kids. Sam lives in Menands and is in the 7th grade.

Guest Artist David Girard also returns to NYSTI as the singing oomiak from the season opener in which he played Washington Irving. Before that, he was seen at NYSTI as the reporter Mike Connor in The Philadelphia Story. David lives in Troy and currently attends Russell Sage College in their first-ever “Male Acting Apprentice Program.” David has worked extensively with NYSTI in Orphan Train (the Reporter), Of Mice and Men (Curley),1776 (Edward Rutledge), Reunion (the Soldier), Agatha Christie’s Ordeal by Innocence (Mickey Argyle), and A Wonderful Life (Sam Wainwright). David is also a vocalist, and performs as a vocalist/swing with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. David was named Metroland’s Best Local Actor for 2006 and won a Buffalo ArtVoice Artie award in 2005. David has performed throughout the Capital Region, recently as Freddy Malins in James Joyce’s The Dead at Cap Rep. David is also a Freelance Web and Graphic Designer.

CAST
Role Actor Residence
Captain Crawford Joel Aroeste Albany
Ooloranna/Narrator Paul Carter Hudson
Father Carroll David Tass Rodriguez Red Hook
A Storyteller/Villager John Romeo Albany
Man in Older Couple Ron Komora Nassau
Newlywed Man John Scala* Scotia
Diet Lady Lisa Franklin Loudonville
School Teacher Heather Bee Chestnut Schenectady
Little Eir’s Mother Shannon Johnson Saratoga Springs
Woman in Older Couple Carole Edie Smith Schenectady
Newlywed Woman Sara Curtis Russell Sage College
Little Eir Sam Stuto Menands
The Oomiak David Girard Troy
Village Dancer Mikaela Holmes* Niskayuna
Village Dancer Leanne Mercadante* Latham
Village Dancer Shannon Rafferty Troy
Village Dancer Amanda Vogue* Syracuse
Villager Will Cannon* Saratoga Springs
Villager Jacob Fisch* Averill Park
Villager Charles Franklin* Loudonville
Villager Joe Phillips Colonie
Villager Brian Sheldon Troy
Young Villager Kyra Bechard Waterford
Young Villager Emily Franklin Loudonville
Young Villager George Franklin Loudonville
Young Villager Alison Lehane Wilton
Young Villager Laura Mele Loudonville
Young Villager Melissa Mele Loudonville
Young Villager Eleah Jayne Peal E. Greenbush
Young Villager Michael Razzano Watervliet
Chorus Sara Bitely Russell Sage College
Chorus Danielle Bookout* Rotterdam
Chorus Hillary Brown Russell Sage College
Chorus Aisha Curtiss Russell Sage College
Chorus Kyrie Ellison Russell Sage College
Chorus Sara Huck Russell Sage College
Chorus Rachel Kemp Russell Sage College
Chorus John McGuire Averill Park
Chorus Olivia Mogul Russell Sage College
Chorus Anna Moscovic Russell Sage College
Chorus Hannah Moss Russell Sage College
Chorus Rachel Newman* Schenectady
Chorus Nicholas Picard Russell Sage College
Chorus Morgan Przekurat Russell Sage College
Chorus Kelsey Schuhle Russell Sage College
Chorus John Segalla Russell Sage College
Chorus Paul Warren Smith* Rensselaer
Chorus Haley Sullivan* Latham
Chorus Kristie Wortman Russell Sage College
*Institute Intern

The Creative Team
Rie Muñoz is widely admired and regarded by many as Alaska’s most beloved artist. Working in bright watercolors, her paintings are joyful, unpretentious, and bursting with life and vitality. Muñoz has illustrated many books, had solo exhibitions at numerous galleries in the United States and Canada, as well as in Japan, Norway, England, and Holland. A resident of Alaska since 1951, Dutch-American Muñoz depicts the day-to-day activities of village life such as fishing, berry picking, children at play, as well as her love of folklore and legends.
Jean Rogers, the author of several children’s books besides King Island Christmas, has lived in Juneau with her Harvard-educated economist husband George since 1945. The two have been married for 63 years, raised six adopted children, and built their first home in Alaska with their own hands to George’s design. In addition to being an active proponent of Alaska’s statehood, nearly all of Rogers’ books are based in Alaska, including Goodbye, My Island; Runaway Mittens, The Secret Moose, and Left Field Bear.

Deborah Brevoort is a playwright and musical librettist/lyricist from Alaska who now lives in the NYC area. She is a two-time winner of the Frederick Loewe Award, first for King Island Christmas and then for Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing with composer Scott Richards. She and Friedman also won the 1998 Dramatists Guild Award for King Island Christmas which is produced each year around the United States. The cast album was produced by 12-time Grammy winner Thomas Z. Shepard. She is the author of The Women of Lockerbie, which won the Kennedy Center’s Fund for New American Plays Award, and the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting Competition. It has been published and produced all over the world after premiering off Broadway in 2003. Other works include: The Blue-Sky Boys, (world premiere at the Barter Theatre in June 2010); The Velvet Weapon, a backstage farce written with a grant from CEC ArtsLink; The Poetry of Pizza, (Purple Rose, Mixed Blood, Virginia Stage and others); Blue Moon Over Memphis, a Noh Drama About Elvis Presley (published by Applause Books); Signs of Life and Into the Fire (published by Samuel French) and Goodbye My Island a musical with David Friedman. She is currently writing a new play about military families commissioned by Virginia Stage; an opera based on Edgar Allan Poe stories commissioned by the American Lyric Theatre, and Crossing Over, a hip hop musical set in Amish country with composer Stephanie Salzman. Deborah is one of the original company members of Alaska’s Perseverance Theatre, a co-founder of Theatre Without Borders and an alumnus of New Dramatists.

Composer David Friedman wrote music and/or lyrics for Listen To My Heart, Help is on the Way, Your Love (quadruple platinum/Diana Ross), My Simple Christmas Wish (Rich, Famous & Powerful), I’ll Be Here With You, Just In Time For Christmas (lyric: David Zippel), We Can Be Kind, We Live on Borrowed Time, and for the films Aladdin and the King of Thieves (sequel to Disney’s Aladdin), The Lizzie McGuire Movie, Bambi 2, Trick, and three television animated series. His new musical Chasing Nicolette, with book and lyrics by Peter Kellogg is headed for Broadway next season. Other musicals include Stunt Girl about the life of Nellie Bly, Desperate Measures a six-character country and western musical version of Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure, and most recently, Lincoln in Love about the early life of Abraham Lincoln. David produced all of Nancy LaMott’s CDs, and is the winner of the Johnny Mercer Songwriter of the Year Award, two MAC Awards, a Bistro Award and a Barrymore Award for song of the year for Chasing Nicolette. In his spare time, David has conducted five Broadway shows. He was the Music Supervisor/Vocal Arranger of Disney’s Beauty & The Beast Broadway, and Music Directed/Vocal Arranged Disney Films Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He also starred in his own Off-Broadway Show, Listen To My Heart – The Songs of David Friedman which has since played in over a dozen productions around the world, and has created “The Thought Exchange” a method of metaphysics which he teaches all over the country.

Director Patricia Birch has a career that crosses all media. She has earned two Emmy Awards, five Tony nominations, as well as Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Barrymore, Billboard and MTV awards as well as a Directors Guild nomination and the prestigious Fred Astaire Award for her choreography and direction of music-driven projects ranging from Sondheim to the Rolling Stones. She has just been notified that she will be inducted to the American Theatre Hall of Fame as well.

She has created the musical staging for original Broadway and off Broadway shows including Grease, You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, The Me Nobody Knows, A Little Night Music, Candide, Over Here, Diamond Studs, The Happy End, Pacific Overtures, They’re Playing Our Song, Gilda Radner, Live From New York, Zoot Suit, Rosa, Like Jazz, and LoveMusik with Donna Murphy and Michael Cerveris, directed by Harold Prince.

Direction as well as choreography for: Celebrating Gershwin, the all-star production at BAM and televised concert production of On the Town both with Michael Tilson Thomas, the Melissa Manchester musical I Sent a Letter to My Love, the original production of Maurice Sendak and Carole King’s Really Rosie, Elvis:A Multi-media Celebration, Band in Berlin, a multi-media theatre docu-musical about the Comedian Harmonists, the Cy Coleman musical Exactly Like You and Portraits in Jazz. The Thomashefsky Project with Michael Tilson Thomas currently playing with major symphonies as well as a double bill of Of Thee I Sing and Let ’em Eat Cake staged for the San Francisco Symphony. In development, Wo Dzai, a multi-media martial arts adventure.

Opera and music projects include Salome, The Mikado, Candide, and Street Scene for New York City Opera, The Mass for The Opera Company of Boston and A Wedding by William Bolcom, Arnold Weinstein and Robert Altman at Chicago Lyric Opera.

Ms. Birch’s film credits include Grease (choreography for all musical sequences), Grease 2 (direction and choreography), and staging for Big, Working Girl, Sleeping with the Enemy, Billy Bathgate, Roseland, The Wild Party, First Wives Club and The Stepford Wives.

For television: Direction, among others: Natalie Cole—Unforgettable with Love, Celebrating Gershwin (Emmy Awards in direction for both), Dance in America, 20th Anniversary of Great Performances as well as The Electric Company (staff). Ms. Birch spent six years with Saturday Night Live staging numbers for original stars and many guest stars. Ms. Birch has directed music videos for Cyndi Lauper, Rolling Stones, Oak Ridge Boys, Carly Simon and the NBC Olympics.

NYSTI productions are Joe Raposo’s Raggedy Ann which toured to Moscow and performed in Washington and on Broadway, The Snow Queen by Adrian Mitchell and Richard Peaslee which played on London’s West End for a month, the New York premiere of Jeffrey Sweet’s American Enterprise, Man of La Mancha and the staged reading workshop of Orphan Train.

Three-time Tony Award-winning designer, Eugene Lee serves as set designer for the production. His Tony-winning designs were for Candide, Sweeney Todd, and Wicked, and he was also nominated for Ragtime. Lee is the long-time production designer for Saturday Night Live, and an adjunct professor at Brown University. A BFA graduate of Carnegie Mellon, and an MFA graduate of the Yale School of Drama, Lee lives in Providence with his wife, Brooke, and their son, Teddy.

King Island Christmas was Kirk Bookman’s first lighting design at NYSTI. He has since designed lighting for NYSTI’s Orphan Train. His work includes extensive Broadway, Off-Broadway, national touring, and regional theatre credits. On Broadway, his designs include Band in Berlin, The Sunshine Boys with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall, The Gin Game with Julie Harris and Charles Durning, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Touring productions for which he has designed lighting include Showboat and Jekyll & Hyde among others. His numerous Off-Broadway credits include My One Good Nerve starring Ruby Dee, The Importance of Being Earnest and Major Barbara directed by Tony Walton, and The Shawl directed by Sidney Lument.

Two-time Emmy Award-winning costume designer (Guiding Light, Love of Life) Robert Anton, has designed several shows for NYSTI in recent years, including Twelve Angry Jurors, Anastasia, Macbeth, Born Yesterday, Man of La Mancha, The Secret Garden, and The Unexpected Guest. Anton has designed widely for theatre, television, and film, and is also an MFA graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

Music Director Michael Musial, a frequent collaborator with NYSTI on musical productions, is head of the Department of Creative and Performing Arts at Russell Sage College and the McCrea Professor of Music at Sage Colleges. For the NYSTI, he has music directed Yours, Anne, 1776, The Secret Garden, Fiorello!, the New York State tour of A Tale of Cinderella, Magna Carta, The Wizard of Oz, and Man of La Mancha. Other music directing credits include Candide, Children of Eden, A Chorus Line, Into the Woods, and Sweeney Todd. Musial is a member of the duo piano team Musial and Musial, and is the director of the College Consortium Singers at Sage. He also serves as the director of music at St. Augustine’s Church.

Sound Designer Tiffany Hunt is a member of 8TwentyFour Productions LLC and the I.A.T.S.E. Local #592 Sound Shop. Past Institute favorites include Fiorello! (during her internship), Man of La Mancha, 1776, Reunion, Orphan Train, and You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown. 8TwentyFour currently provides audio for Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Citizen Cope, Michael Franti & Spearhead, and Switchfoot.

Creative Team
Libretto Deborah Brevoort
Composer David Friedman
Based on the book by Jean Rogers
Director Patricia Birch
Musical Director Michael Musial
Choreographer Patricia Birch
Set Design Eugene Lee
Lighting Design Kirk Bookman
Costume Design Robert Anton
Sound Design Tiffany Hunt
Production Stage Manager Heather Hamelin
Asst. Stage Managers Anna Lucia Dede-Pankin*
Paul Warren Smith*
Producing Artistic Director Patricia Di Benedetto Snyder
*Institute Intern

Saturday, December 5, 8:00 PM
Sunday, December 6, 2:00 PM
Friday, December 11, 8:00 PM
Saturday, December 12, 8:00 PM
Sunday, December 13, 2:00 PM+
Friday, December 18, 8:00 PM
Weekdays: December 4, 8 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17 at 10:00 AM
+ Sign Language Interpreted Performance;
Assistive Listening Devices Available at All Performances
NYSTI BOX OFFICE: (518) 274-3256, WEBSITE: www.nysti.org
Adults $20, Senior Citizen & Student $16, Child to age 12 $10
Produced by the NYS Theatre Institute and performed
at the Schacht Fine Arts Center, Russell Sage College, Division St., Troy, NY

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