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"A classy and much-needed celebration of the unappreciated composer-performer Laura Nyro. Kuhn's program, enhanced by a collection of superb arrangements, brought out the soulfulness of Nyro's lyrics" - Variety

THREE TIME TONY AWARD NOMINEE

JUDY KUHN

RETURNS WITH HER ACCLAIMED SHOW

"SERIOUS PLAYGROUND - THE SONGS OF LAURA NYRO"

BASED ON THE NEW CD FROM GHOSTLIGHT RECORDS

THURSDAY NIGHT SHOWS START AT IRIDIUM JAZZ CLUB ON JANUARY 10

JUDY KUHN, the acclaimed actress and singer, will bring her acclaimed show Serious Playground - The Songs of Laura Nyro back to New York in the new year. Kuhn is currently starring on Broadway in the musical Les Miserables and makes a cameo appearance in the current box office smash Enchanted. After a sold out run this season, the show will be performed to the Iridium Jazz Club (1650 Broadway at 51st Street) on Thursdays at 7:00 PM from January 10 - 31. All shows have a $30 cover and a $10 minimum. Doors open at 6:00 PM and a full dinner menu is available. Please call (212) 582-2121 for reservations.

The show is based on her new CD, Serious Playground - The Songs of Laura Nyro, released this fall by Ghostlight Records. According to The Washington Post, "Kuhn brings an elegance to Nyro's songbook, but her interpretations aren't so refined that they fail to evoke some more of the earthy and jazz-influenced aspects of Nyro's legacy." The Oakland Tribune raved "Kuhn trains her emotional, often thrilling voice on finding the joy, depression, funk and enigmatic pulse of Nyro's distinctive songs. Jeffrey Klitz's arrangements and orchestrations don't try to modernize Nyro's songs but rather give them a timeless sound that captures pop, blues, and great American balladry all at the same time."

Serious Playground is the first-ever solo CD celebrating the pioneering singer-songwriter of the 1960s and 70s, who would have turned 60 this fall. The CD was produced by Music Director Jeffrey Klitz and Joel Moss, with Mr. Klitz leading an eight-piece band. Kurt Deutsch and Ms. Kuhn serve as executive producers. The recording is based on her sold-out concert at the Lincoln Center American Songbook Series in January 2007. That concert followed Judy's Obie Award-winning role in the Off Broadway production of Eli's Comin' at the Vineyard Theatre, which inspired her passion for Nyro's music.

Serious Playground features fresh arrangements of Nyro's best-known songs like "Stoney End," "Sweet Blindness" and "Save The Country," but also offers new interpretations of rarely-recorded songs like "To A Child," "Mother's Spiritual" and "Been On A Train." "Lonely Women," spare and haunted on Nyro's album Eli and the Thirteenth Confession - widely considered her masterpiece - here has the feel of a hard blues. "Upstairs By A Chinese Lamp," named an all-time favorite by Rickie Lee Jones, is given a delicate treatment, as if part of a chamber opera. "Save The Country," whose potent anti-war message had a particular impact during the tumultuous Vietnam era, has a renewed relevance in the current political climate. USA Today called Kuhn's recording of this number "a tangy, sassy take on this timely Nyro song."

Laura Nyro is regarded as one of the most original voices of popular music. Her compositions - which fused gospel, soul, folk, and jazz - were hit records for artists including Barbra Streisand, The Fifth Dimension, Blood Sweat & Tears, and Three Dog Night. Nyro's own recordings, though not chart-toppers, have long been favorites with musicians and critics. Along with the likes of Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, she helped to create the very idea of the contemporary singer/songwriter. Joni Mitchell herself said "she was not just an influence. I took direction from her."

"Nyro's profoundly poetic lyrics and her sophisticated, surprising melodies have such limitless range of expression and insight," says Judy. "I hope that this recording moves those who didn't know her work before to go listen to her and those who are already part of the fan club to listen anew to these beautiful, heartbreaking and inspiring songs."

JUDY KUHN has been nominated for three Tony Awards and three Drama Desk Awards for her work on Broadway in the hit revival of She Loves Me, the American premiers of Chess and Les Miserables and Rags. She is the singing voice of Disney's Pocahontas and co-starred in the upcoming film Day on Fire, for which she also performed the soundtrack with John Medeski.

Also on Broadway she appeared in Richard Nelson's play Two Shakespearean Actors (Lincoln Center Theatre), Alan Menken & Tim Rice's King David, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Most recently she appeared in a new adaptation of Chekhov's Three Sisters by Craig Lucas at the Intiman Theatre directed by Bartlett Sher, and co-starred in the world premiere of Michael John LaChiusa's The Highest Yellow at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA. She played Fosca in the critically acclaimed production of Passion at the Kennedy Center's Sondheim Celebration, and created the role of Betty Schaefer in the U.S. premiere of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

In London's West End she starred in Metropolis for which she received a Laurence Olivier Award Nomination. Other theatre includes the title role in The Ballad of Little Jo at the Steppenwolf Theatre Co.(Jeff Award Nomination), As Thousand's Cheer (Drama Dept.), Dream True (Vineyard Theatre), Strike Up the Band (Encores!), The Glass Menagerie (McCarter Theatre), Martin Guerre (Hartford Stage), and Martha Clarke's Endangered Species (BAM).

Judy sang the title role in Disney's Pocahontas as well as the in the sequel Pocahontas II: Journey To A New World. Television appearances include "Hope & Faith," "Law & Order, "All My Children," "The Secret Life of Mary Margaret," "My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies", The Kennedy Center Honors, The Les Miserables 10th Anniversary Concert, and "In Performance At The White House."

Judy has performed on concert stages around the world including appearances at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and The Royal Albert Hall in London and with Peter Nero and the Philly Pops Orchestra. She has performed her solo concert Finding Home which the New York Times called "revelatory" for Lincoln Center's American Songbook Series, Joe's Pub, the Kennedy Center and the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia. She can be heard on numerous original cast recordings as well as her first solo CD, Just In Time: Judy Kuhn Sings Jule Styne.

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 & 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 honored with a special 2006 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 Legally Blonde, Martin Short - Fame Becomes Me, High Fidelity, 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 LoveMusik. Ghostlight Records is distributed by Razor & Tie Entertainment. For more information, visit www.GhostlightRecords.com or www.sh-k-boom.com.