FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: Miller Wright / Dan Fortune at (212) 977-7800
“A sharp and tasty new musical” – The New York Times
GHOSTLIGHT RECORDS AND
PLAYWRIGHTS HORIZONS
ANNOUNCE THE WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING OF
“THE BUBBLY BLACK GIRL SHEDS HER CHAMELEON SKIN”
A NEW MUSICAL BY KIRSTEN CHILDS
STARRING TONY AWARD WINNER LACHANZE
GHOSTLIGHT RECORDS and PLAYWRIGHTS HORIZONS have announced the release of the World Premiere Recording of the musical The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin. The show premiered in 2000 at Playwrights Horizons – the legendary launching pad for works such as Driving Miss Daisy, Sunday In The Park with George and Grey Gardens – and garnered rave reviews for its dynamic score by Kirsten Childs and magnetic performances by LaChanze, Felicia Finley, Darius DeHaas and more. The original production never received a cast album, but through the combined preservation efforts of Playwrights Horizons and Ghostlight Records, the first recording is available for purchase and download in stores and online, and at www.ghostlightrecords.com.
The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin is a unique and extraordinary coming-of-age musical memoir about an African-American in a white world. The sounds of pop, jazz and Motown fuse together in the infectious tracks as we follow Viveca “Bubbly” Stanton from the turbulent 1960’s through her hometown of Los Angeles to New York City in the 1990’s. It’s the tale of a young woman’s tumultuous journey towards self-acceptance in the face of conflicting messages about gender, race and relationships.
The recording features original cast members LaChanze as Viveca (the 2006 Tony Award winner for Best Actress in The Color Purple, as well as Company, Dreamgirls and Once On This Island, which originated at Playwrights Horizons and for which she received a Tony nomination), Jerry Dixon (Once On This Island, Five Guys Named Moe, tick…tick…BOOM!, Avenue X), Felicia Finley (Broadway’s The Wedding Singer, Aida, Smokey Joe's Cafe and The Life), Darius de Haas (Broadway’s Marie Christine, Rent, Carousel and Kiss of the Spider Woman), Jonathan Dokuchitz (Broadway’s Hairspray, The Boys from Syracuse, The Who’s Tommy, Company and Into the Woods), Cheryl Alexander (Broadway’s Dreamgirls, Once On This Island and Sophisticated Ladies) Duane Boutte (Playwrights Horizons’ The Heliotrope Bouquet and Carousel at Lincoln Center), Robert Jason Jackson (Off-Broadway’s Running Man), Natalie Venetia Belcon (Off-Broadway’s And The World Goes ‘Round) and Angel Desai (Stop Kiss and Henry VII at the Public.) Joining the cast for this recording are Adriane Lenox (Tony Award winner for Doubt and also Caroline, or Change and Kiss Me Kate on Broadway) and Shayna Steele (Broadway’s Hairspray, Jesus Christ Superstar and Rent.) The album was produced by Grammy-Award winner Joel Moss and Curtis Moore, with Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight President and co-founder Kurt Deutsch as executive producer.
After its debut in May 2000 at Playwrights Horizons’ Anne G. Wilder Theater, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin was hailed as “a captivating new musical” by Ben Brantley of The New York Times, “absolutely delightful” by Amy Gamerman of The Wall Street Journal and as “one of the most confident and original pop musicals in recent seasons” by Linda Winer of Newsday. Jacques LeSourd of Gannett Newspapers raved “this show sends you out on a genuine high.”
The original production was developed through Playwrights Horizons’ noted New Theater Wing Program. For her book, music and lyrics, Kirsten Childs was honored with the prestigious Jonathan Larson Foundation Award, The Edward Kleban Award for Lyrics and The Richard Rodgers Production and Development Awards. The musical – which was nominated for three Drama Desk Awards – was choreographed by Tony Award nominee A.C. Ciulla and directed by Emmy Award winner Wilfredo Medina.
KIRSTEN CHILDS is an alumna of NYU’s Musical Theater Playwriting Program. Her show Miracle Brothers, which debuted at the Vineyard Theatre, won the Meet The Composer and Kitty Carlisle Hart Musical Theatre Awards. Her concert version of Rumpelstiltskin was seen at the American Songbook series at Lincoln Center and her adaptation of the Harold Arlen/Truman Capote musical House Of Flowers was seen at City Center Encores! Her other works include Wasted at the George Street Playhouse and If You Give A Mouse A Cookie (Amazing Grace) at Theatreworks USA. Upcoming projects include If You Give A Pig A Pancake (Jazzy Miz Mozetta) at Theatreworks USA and Funked Up Fairy Tales at the Barrington Stage Company. Kirsten has written songs for Dianne Reeves, and is working on original musicals with playwright Charles Randolph-Wright as well as novelist Walter Mosley. She is a member of Dramatists Guild Council, a professor at NYU's Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program at Tisch School Of The Arts, a TDF Mentor in Wendy Wasserstein's Open Doors Program and a teaching artist at Lincoln Center Theater Songwriting in the Schools Program. As a performer, Ms. Childs co-starred with Chita Rivera in Chicago and performed on Broadway in Dancin’, Jerry’s Girls, and Sweet Charity.
ABOUT GHOSTLIGHT:
It is a standing practice in the theatre that a ghostlight – a floor lamp holding a single bare light bulb – be lit on stage after everyone has left for the night, so that the theatre never goes dark. In the same spirit, Ghostlight Records, created by Sh-K-Boom co-founders Kurt Deutsch and Sherie Rene Scott, ensures that music of the theatre by composers old and new will always be enjoyed. Ghostlight Records honors the past while shining a light toward the future. Ghostlight Records was recently honored with a special Drama Desk Award for dedication to the preservation of musical theatre through cast recordings, as well as Grammy Award® nominations for Best Musical Show Album: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Hair (The Actors’ Fund Of America Benefit Recording), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and most recently The Drowsy Chaperone. Other recent recordings include the original cast recording of See What I Wanna See and Bernarda Alba by Michael John LaChiusa, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, Patti LuPone’s The Lady With The Torch, and the forthcoming Martin Short – Fame Becomes Me. For more information, visit www.GhostlightRecords.com or www.sh-k-boom.com.
ABOUT PLAYWRIGHTS HORIZONS:
PLAYWRIGHTS HORIZONS, under the leadership of Artistic Director Tim Sanford and Managing Director Leslie Marcus, is a writer's theater dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers and lyricists, and to the production of their new work. Outstanding productions include four Pulitzer Prize winners: Doug Wright’s I Am My Own Wife, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George, Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy and Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles; as well as Doug Wright, Scott Frankel and Michael Korie’s Grey Gardens, Craig Lucas’ Small Tragedy, Richard Nelson and Shaun Davey's James Joyce's The Dead, William Finn's March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, Christopher Durang's Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, Jon Robin Baitz's The Substance of Fire, Scott McPherson's Marvin's Room, Adam Guettel and Tina Landau's Floyd Collins, and Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley's Violet. Playwrights Horizons was founded in 1971 at the Clark Center Y by Robert Moss, before moving to 42nd Street. André Bishop served as Artistic Director from 1981 to 1991, followed by Don Scardino who served through 1995.
