St. Luke’s Theatre

Direct from Los Angeles, where it enjoyed an extended 5-month run at Open Stage West, the musical Fabulous Divas of Broadway, written, directed and performed by Alan Palmer, opens at St Luke’s Theater on 27 Feb 2008, following previews from 13 Feb and booking through to 30 Mar 2008.

Fabulous Divas of Broadway: What to do when you’re a male musical theater performer with a big belting voice and an affinity for Broadway’s greatest leading ladies? Since Broadway shows aren’t casting men in traditional women’s roles � if you’re resourceful, you create your own one-man ‘woman’ musical!

A hilarious and touching look at growing up in the business while portraying 18 different stars of the stage. In rapid succession and a non-stop turnover of gorgeous costumes, he brings to life such legends as Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, Liza Minnelli, Angela Lansbury, Julie Andrews, Judy Garland and Chita Rivera and such Tony-winning stars of today as Christine Ebersole, Patti LuPone, Sutton Foster, Kristin Chenoweth and Beth Leavel.

Performing 25 songs in each lady’s singular style, he weaves together reminiscences of growing up in a small town obsessed with musical cast albums, auditioning for shows in New York City, performing during onstage and backstage mishaps, raising his young son and interacting with many of the ladies represented in the show.

Alan Palmer is accompanied by Curtis Jerome.

The creative team comprises Jessa Orr (sets), C. Bucky (costumes) and Peter Ray (lighting).

(above: Alan Palmer)

Above: the original cast of The Rise of Dorothy Hale with playwright Myra Bairstow. (from left) Laura Koffman, Sarah Wynter, Myra Bairstow, Mark LaMura, Sarita Choudhury, Patrick Boll, Michael Badalucco.

The Rise of Dorothy Hale played 137 performances – officially opening on October 4, 2007 and running through January 27, 2008.

Myra Bairstow’s drama centers on Dorothy Hale, a film actress once married to famed American muralist Gardner Hale. Hale threw herself from her 16th-story apartment on Central Park South in 1938.

The Rise of Dorothy Hale explores the life and death of Dorothy Hale through the creative process of Frida Kahlo and enables the contradictions in history to stand face to face. Did the alleged suicide note that Clare Boothe Luce claims to have received even exist? Why did Harry Hopkins involve the White House and two key players of the Roosevelt Administration to handle damage control around Dorothy’s death? What possible secrets did Dorothy know about Harry Hopkins and Clare Luce before she was found dead? Was Dorothy Hale’s death a suicide or a murder made to look like a suicide? Decades later the story of Dorothy Hale became legendary when Mrs. Luce confirmed that she had commissioned Frida Kahlo to paint Dorothy in November 1938 and intended the painting to be a beautiful portrait as a gift for Dorothy’s grieving mother. Clare was so horrified when she received Frida’s rendition of Dorothy’s death that she placed the canvas in a storage area for nearly thirty years before donating it ‘anonymously’ to a museum in the 1960′s.

The Rise of Dorothy Hale featured set design by Josh Iacovelli, lighting design by Graham Kindred and costumes by Rebecca Bernstein. Producing partners were Edmund Gaynes and Aridyne Productions.

www.dorothyhale.com