Sissy's back on Broadway with the cast & crew of The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess this Friday!

Feb. 21, 2012 - PRLog -- Back in December, Sissy was invited to the media day event to promote the soon to open on Broadway production of The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess and she got to talk to some of the stars including Norm Lewis, Audra McDonald, Director Diane Paulus, Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks and other cast members. The cast also performed some numbers from the show for the invited press.


George and Ira's Gershwin's ground-breaking work, reimagined by director Diane Paulus, musician Dierdre Murray and playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, stars Audra McDonald, Norm Lewis and David Alan Grier.
A two-and-a-half hour reworking of George and Ira Gershwin's folk opera about the crippled Porgy and his love for seductress Bess that leads him to a confrontation with her murderous boyfriend, Crown, in 1920's Charleston, SC. Includes classic songs "Summertime," "Bess, You Is My Woman Now," "I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'" and "I'm on My Way."

The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, directed by Diane Paulus, with book adapted by Suzan-Lori Parks, and music adapted by Diedre Murray, was presented by the American Repertory Theater (ART) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Previews started August 17, and the show opened August 31, 2011. Following Trevor Nunn's production, the ART Porgy was the second production initiated by the Gershwin and Heyward estates to adapt the opera for the musical theatre stage. Again spoken dialogue, here written by Parks, replaced the opera's sung recitatives.

Prior to the opening, Paulus, Parks and Murray made statements to the press about the production's primary goal to "introduce the work to the next generation of theatergoers". They discussed changes to the opera's plot, dialogue and score that were being explored to make the work more appealing to a contemporary audience.  In response, Stephen Sondheim wrote an editorial letter taking exception to the premise that the original opera is a flawed work that needs to be improved. Critic Hilton Als countered in The New Yorker that Sondheim had very little exposure to black culture and that the Paulus version succeeded in "humanizing the depiction of race onstage."

The original cast included Audra McDonald as Bess, Norm Lewis as Porgy, David Alan Grier as Sporting Life, Philip Boykin as Crown, Nikki Renee Daniels as Clara, and Joshua Henry as Jake. The production began previews on Broadway in December and the official opening is scheduled for January 2012.  Early reviews of the show were positive to mixed. All praised McDonald's performance of Bess, but critics were divided on the success of the adaptation, staging and setting. Some praised the intimate scale of the drama and the believability of the performances; others found the staging to be unfocused and the settings to lack atmosphere. Time magazine ranked the show as its number 2 choice among theatre productions in 2011. The production opened on Broadway January 12, 2012 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. All of the major roles were played by the same cast as in Cambridge.

Now this talented cast & crew will take their chances with Sissy and talk about their process with the show this Friday night 7:30pm EST on MNN (Manhattan Neighborhood Network) Channel 56 Time Warner Cable Manhattan and on our website www.thesissygamacheshow.com

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The Sissy Gamache Show is one of the most respected programs on MNN (Manhattan Neighborhood Network) Channel 56 airing live Fridays at 7:30pm.The show was created to provide a vocal outlet for people in the arts, media and entertainment community