LEA SALONGA: NEW YORK IN JUNE Returns To The Carlyle, Begins 6/7
Mich
LEA SALONGA: NEW YORK IN JUNE Returns To The Carlyle, Begins 6/7
Friday, May 27, 2011; Posted: 02:05 PM - by BWW News Desk
The Carlyle Hotel will welcome Tony Award-winner Lea Salonga (Miss Saigon) back to the Café Carlyle in an exclusive three-week return engagement. Beginning Tuesday, June 7 (through Saturday, June 25), Ms. Salonga, who made her Café Carlyle debut last season, will present an all-new program entitled "Lea Salonga: New York in June."
Lea Salonga will take her audience on a musical tour of her multi-faceted career, from Filipino pop star to Broadway and West End dynamo to touring concert artist. She will share personal anecdotes in an evening that combines melodies ranging from Filipino Tagalog songs to American standards and some little known songs she has learned along her journey. Ms. Salonga will be supported by a quartet led by her Musical Director and pianist Larry Yurman. The evening will be directed by Daniel Kutner.
"Lea Salonga: New York in June" will play Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8:45 P.M. with an additional show on Saturday at 10:45 P.M. Dinner (required) is served from 6:30 P.M. There is a music charge of $75 (Tuesday-Friday), $85 (Saturday) & $45 for seating at the bar.
The Café Carlyle is located in The Carlyle Hotel - 35 East 76th Street at Madison Avenue, and is what Liz Smith calls the "favorite of all New York nightspots." For reservations please call 212-744-1600. For additional information please visit www.thecarlyle.com.
Biography
Lea Salonga is a singer and actress best known for her Tony Award-winning role in Miss Saigon. She is recognized for having won, in addition to the Tony, the Olivier, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World Awards, in the field of musical theatre. She was also the first Asian to play Eponine in the musical Les Misérables on Broadway and returned to the beloved show as Fantine in the 2006 revival. In the summer of 2011, Lea will appear in the new musical, Allegiance, when it is work-shopped in New York City. Developed by legendary actor George Takei, Allegiance tells the story of a Japanese-American family during World War II and the internment years. Recently she participated in the 25th Anniversary Concert of Les Misérables to sold-out crowds at UK's O2 arena. Universal will release the star-studded concert this spring. She also dazzled as the hauntingly tragic Grizabella in a limited run of CATS in her hometown of Manila. Honored with an appointment as a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Goodwill Ambassador in October of 2010, Lea vowed to act as advocate for the Youth and United Nations Global Alliance initiative led by the FAO. Also in 2010, Lea made her debut in the world of cabaret, performing a sold-out three-week engagement at the Café Carlyle in New York City. She will be returning in June 2011 to delight audiences in another multi-week engagement. Lea also teamed up with legendary Grammy-winner, Patti Austin, to perform the concert series, Heart and Soul. She delighted fans in Kuala Lumpur with her debut appearance there, An Evening with Lea Salonga. She has also held sold-out concerts in both Hong Kong and Bangkok and performed a special Valentine's Day 2011 concert with the Bangkok Symphony. In 2005, Lea played her first US concert tour in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlantic City, and Chicago. Concert dates in Washington, D.C. and Norfolk, Virginia followed. Later that year, she performed with a 26-piece ensemble to a sold-out crowd at the Isaac Stern Hall in Carnegie Hall, benefitting the Diverse City Theater Company. In her 30-year career, Lea has performed for five Philippine presidents (from Ferdinand Marcos to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo), three American Presidents (George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush), and for Diana, Princess of Wales and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. She began her career as a child star in the Philippines, making her professional debut in 1978at the age of seven in the musical The King and I. She went on to star in productions of Annie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Fiddler on the Roof, The Rose Tattoo, The Sound of Music, The Goodbye Girl, Paper Moon, and The Fantasticks. Lea began her recording career at the age of ten with her first album, "Small Voice," which received a gold certification. Her albums that followed include "Lea", released in 1988, "Inspired" released in 2007, and numerous live concert and Broadway albums. In addition to performing in musical theater and recordings, she hosted her own musical television show, "Love, Lea," and also opened for international acts such as Menudo and Stevie Wonder. Lea's big breakthrough came when she was selected to play Kim in the megahit musical Miss Saigon in 1989. For her performance as Kim, she won the Olivier for Best Performance by an Actress in a Musical for the 1989/1990 season. Miss Saigon moved from its original London home, to Broadway in April 1991. Lea subsequently garnered the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and the Theatre World Awards for the same role. In 1999, she was invited back to London to close the musical, and in 2001, at the age of 29 and after doing the Manila run of the musical, she returned to Broadway to close the Broadway production. Upon completion of her initial stint as Kim on Broadway, Lea played the role of street waif Eponine in the Broadway production of Les Misérables. In 2002, she returned to Broadway to play the role of a Chinese immigrant in a reinterpretation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song opposite Jose Llana. This was after the reinvented musical had a very successful run at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 2001, with Lea playing the lead role and the show garnering multiple wins and nominations, including Lead Actress in a Musical for her, from the LA Stage Alliance's Ovation Awards. The Salonga-led Broadway revival cast album was also a top contender at the 2003 Grammy Awards for Best Musical Show Album. Many fans of all ages recognize Lea as the singing voice of Princess Jasmine from Aladdin and Fa Mulan for Mulan and Mulan II.
Mich
Lea Salonga Will Play Three-Week New York Engagement in June
By Michael Gioia
30 May 2011
Tony Award winner Lea Salonga will return to Café Carlyle for an exclusive three-week return engagement beginning June 7 with a show titled Lea Salonga: New York in June.
Salonga's concert, scheduled to run through June 25, will take her audience on a musical tour of her multi-faceted career. According to press notes, "She will share personal anecdotes in an evening that combines melodies ranging from Filipino Tagalog songs to American standards and some little known songs she has learned along her journey."
The performer will be supported by a quartet led by musical director and pianist Larry Yurman. Daniel Kutner will direct the evening.
Salonga won a Tony Award in 1991 for her performance in Miss Saigon. She has also appeared on Broadway in Flower Drum Song, Something Good and Les Miserables.
Lea Salonga: New York in June will play Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8:45 PM with an additional show on Saturday nights at 10:45 PM.
The Café Carlyle at The Carlyle Hotel is located at 35 East 76th Street at Madison Avenue. For more information and reservations, call (212) 744-1600 or visit www.thecarlyle.com.
Mich
Lea back on Broadway and The Café Carlyle
FUNFARE By Ricardo F. Lo
The Philippine Star
Updated June 02, 2011 12:00 AM
BREAKING NEWS: Lea Salonga will be back on Broadway this summer as lead star of the new musical Allegiance opposite Star Trek actor George Takei.
This piece of good news was relayed to Funfare by this corner’s Big Apple correspondent Edmund Silvestre who also added that, prior to her Broadway comeback, Lea will be the exclusive featured artist for three straight weeks at The Café Carlyle from June 7 to 25.
Allegiance tells the story of a Japanese-American family’s struggles and triumphs during the World War II.
“Lea will play Gloria Suziki,” said Edmund. “She and Takei will be joined by several Asian-American actors including Fil-Ams Paolo Montalban and Alan Ariano.”
Edmund recalled that as lead star of Miss Saigon, the longest-running Broadway musical of all time, Lea scored a Best Actress grand slam (Tony, Oliver, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Theater World Awards), and was the first Asian to play Eponine in Les Miserables on Broadway, returning to it as Fantine in the 2006 revival.
“She recently participated in the 25th-anniversary concert of Les Miz to sell-out crowds at UK’s 02 Arena. Of course, she also dazzled audiences as the hauntingly tragic Grizabella in a limited run of CATS in Manila.”
The Café Carlyle stint is Lea’s second.
According to Edmund, Lea will be accompanied by a quartet led by musical director and pianist Larry Yurman in an all-new program of songs to be megged by Daniel Kutner.
“Lea, who will take over the Café Carlyle stage from the legendary film director and musician Woody Allen and his jazz band, is welcomed by The Carlyle Hotel managing director Erich Steinboch, who raves about Lea’s unparalleled talent and box-office power among the Big Apple’s elite circle and music aficionados that prompted Café Carlyle to sign her up for the second time around.”
Edmund quoted Steinboch as saying, “Ms. Salonga’s repertoire will cover Filipino music, musical theater and the Great American Songbook. Regular patrons as well as first timers can’t wait to watch and hear her perform live on stage in an intimate setting.”
Other legendary stars who have performed at The Café Carlyle include Judy Collins, Eartha Kitt, Elaine Stritch, Barbara Cook, John Pizzarelli, Jessica Molaskey, Beverly Peer, Ute Lemper and Steve Tyrell.
The Café Carlyle is located in The Carlyle Hotel, 35 East 76th Street on Madison Avenue, and is what top entertainment journalist Liz Smith calls the “favorite of all New York nightspots.” (Note: Tickets to Café Carlyle’s An Evening with Lea Salonga are priced at $75 [Tuesday thru Friday], $85 [Saturdays] and $45 at the bar.)
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Incidentally, last May 21, Lea and husband Rob Chien treated their daughter Nicole to a holiday in Hong Kong Disneyland for the girl’s fifth birthday. Lea happened to have an engagement in Hong Kong that same week.
“Even if it isn’t a special occasion, just being here (at Hong Kong Disneyland) makes that day special,” Funfare sources quoted Lea as saying.
Lea is familiar with Disney and Hong Kong Disneyland. Many Disney fans know her as one of the voice actors for the Disney films Aladdin (as Jasmine) and Mulan (title role). She also performed at the grand opening of Hong Kong Disneyland in 2005.
By coincidence, Disneyland was also marking its fifth anniversary so the number five was prominently displayed throughout the park.
Funfare sources added that Nicole made new friends during her visit, including Rapunzel from Tangled. She also rode the carousel with Cinderella, one of her favorite Disney characters. The princess and birthday girl had a lovely chat and Cinderella clearly made an impression on Nicole.
Nicole knows that her mother has recorded classic Disney songs. Lea said now that she is a mother, her Mulan and Jasmine recordings have even more meaning.
The music provides a kind of “family immortality, because she [Nicole] will always be able to say ‘my mom sang that’,” when she hears one of her mother’s Disney recordings. “It’s really special and it never gets old.”
They enjoyed the rides and shows in the park as well as meeting a number of characters, also including Tinker Bell, who asked Nicole to show her a funny face. Then the two posed making funny faces together. And Tinker Bell even bestowed a bit of pixie dust on Nicole.
It was, indeed, a “high 5” celebration for both Nicole and Hong Kong Disneyland.
(E-mail reactions at ric...@philstar.net.ph or at entph...@yahoo.com. You may also send your questions to askri...@gmail.com. For more updates, photos and videos visit http://www.philstar.com/funfare.)
Mich
Lea returns to New York's Café Carlyle; hits Broadway anew
By MAUREEN MARIE BELMONTE
June 2, 2011, 3:38pm
MANILA, Philippines – Philippine pride Lea Salonga revisits Carlyle Hotel’s nightclub, Café Carlyle in New York, for her second exclusive three-week cabaret-style return engagement titled "An Evening with Lea Salonga" starting on June 7 to 25, “Funfare” reported Thursday.
With Salonga's return stint on the Café Carlyle stage, she will take her audience on a musical tour of her stellar career, from her beginnings as a Filipino pop star to her emergence as a Broadway and West End star. As such, she will be singing everything from Filipino songs to American standards, supported by musical director and pianist Larry Yurman in shows directed by Daniel Kutner.
Salonga made her debut at the famed nightclub in March 2010 for a series of intimate shows titled "The Journey So Far," as noted by broadway.com in an article published on February 19, 2010.
Among the other celebrated stars that have graced the Café Carlyle stage were Judy Collins, Eartha Kitt, Debbie Reynolds, Barbara Cook, John Pizzarelli, Rita Moreno, Ute Lemper and Steve Tyrell. Salonga's performances come on the heels of Woody Allen's stint with Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz Band, which began on Jan. 10 and will end on June 13, a few dates after Lea's show starts.
Meanwhile, Salonga---a Best Actress grand slam winner (Tony, Oliver, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Theater World Awards)---is Broadway bound anew this year, opposite film and television icon George Takei ("Star Trek," "Heroes") for "Allegiance" in New York.
With music and lyrics by Jay Kuo ("Insignificant Others," "Worlds Apart") and book by Kuo and Lorenzo Thione, "Allegiance" is a Japanese-American family drama that explores love, loss and heroism during the Japanese-American confinement in 1942, as noted in an article posted at broadway.com Wednesday.
Salonga plays Gloria Suzuki, Sam’s (Takei) sister-in-law, who writes a memoir telling her personal experiences living in the internment camps. Also reportedly joining the cast are some Asian-American actors, including Fil-Ams Paolo Montalban and Alan Ariano.
The article also noted that in July 2009 and February and October 2010, Takei and Salonga participated in stage readings of “Allegiance” in Los Angeles and New York. Salonga gained prominence abroad for her participation in “Miss Saigon,” one of the longest-running Broadway musicals of all time. She was also the first Asian to play Eponine in “Les Miserables” on Broadway, and returned to the musical via the role of Fantine in its 2006 revival.
The internationally acclaimed actress’ most recent Broadway performances include the 25th-anniversary concert of “Les Miserables” at United Kingdom’s 02 Arena in October 2010 where she played the role of Fantine, and last July 2010 in Manila for her of Grizabella in a limited run of “CATS.”