Tag "Tony Award"

  • Interview with Andy Sandberg

    5-11-20 Interview

    The board of the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Florida announced today that the organization has chosen Andy Sandberg as its Artistic Director and Chief Executive Officer as of January 1, 2020. Sandberg succeeds Bruce Rodgers, who is retiring after serving as the Hermitage’s Executive Director since 2005. Sandberg, an accomplished director, writer, and Tony Award-winning producer whose national and international career has been committed to new work and artist development, was selected following an extensive national search. In his new role, Sandberg will be responsible for overseeing the organization’s operations, artistic programs, administration, and strategic plan.

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  • Interview with Frank Galati

    12-25-12 – Audio Interview

    My Holiday gift to my listeners is the first half on my interview with two-time Tony Award winning actor, writer, teacher, director Frank Galati. Unfortunately our interview was cut short when Frank had to return to rehearsal, so hopefully there will be a continuation in the future. In this interview, Frank talks about his early life and the beginnings of his extraordinary career, which began with him making faces at himself in front of the family’s darkened picture window. Always a funny kid he learned early how to make people laugh but had “no ambition to work in the theater.” He agrees with renowned set designer Tony Walton’s assertion –that “he, (Frank) didn’t pick it (theater), it picked him.” While pursuing his teaching career Frank explored literature, language, theater and performance, and when opportunities to perform came up – he took them. Listen to this erudite, thoughtful, interesting, and endlessly engaging man describe the serendipity of his life.

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  • Interview with Mary Testa

    The next 3 interviewees have all won awards for their work in theater, film and TV. They are honored and respected by their colleagues but two of them are virtually unknown outside of their profession. They have all struggled with and overcome significant obstacles, in order to achieve the skill they have achieved and the recognition of their peers. Another thing they have in common is their remarkable candor, openness, unselfconsciousness, self-deprecation and amazing generosity.

    9/4/12 – Interview

    Mary TestaMary Testa is a working actress, singer, dancer, Jill of all trades in the theatre, and winner of a Drama Desk Award for “3 decades of excellent work.” Most recently she starred as the intrepid Annie Edson Taylor in the musical Queen of the Mist, which was written for her by composer, lyricist and librettist Michael John Lachiusa, who has himself been nominated for several Tony and Drama Desk Awards. Like the character she plays in Queen of the Mist, Mary Testa “has greatness in her.” She found a way to survive a childhood which didn’t celebrate her. In Catholic school she was treated very badly because she “everything she wasn’t supposed to be;” Italian, when the nuns were Irish, curly haired and breasted, when the norm was straight hair and a flat-chest, out-spoken and defiant, when good girls were quiet and obedient. Refusing to go to Catholic High School Mary attended the public high school where she was the new kid in town and therefore, once more, odd man out. But Mary would not be suppressed and developed a full out – in your face – “I will say what everyone is thinking but no one else will say,” personality. Accompanying this outgoing personal style is Mary’s prodigious talent and that is what has kept her working in theater. Listen to this guile-less, passionate, funny, thoughtful woman talk about her life and her work, and hear her glorious voice in snippets from Queen of the Mist.

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  • Interview with Joanna McClelland Glass

    7-17-12 Interview

    Joanna McClelland Glass is a writer. Her play “Play Memory” directed by the legendary Hal Prince was nominated for a Tony Award. Both of her novels were published and optioned for film and she adapted both of the screenplays. Woman Wanted was directed by and starred Kiefer Sutherland, Holly Hunter and Michael Moriarty. But Joanna’s heart is in the theatre and her playwriting credits are much too extensive to include here. With all this talent and skill one might assume that Joanna had a privileged childhood and lots of training. No! Joanna’s childhood included an illiterate mother and an alcoholic father, who sold everything not nailed down to pay for his liquor. True to the culture of her time Joanna married young, worked to send her husband to graduate school, had three children very close in age and settled into the role of traditional wife and mother. It was not until, approaching 40; as the divorced mother of 3 young children, that she seriously turned her attention to her writing. Having announced that she was going to “try to support this whole thing with her writing,” Joanna says she simply had to “get kids on the bus and sit at the desk and do something.” And without any training – she had to learn the rules of her trade on the job – that is exactly what she did. And the quantity and quality of what her work is quite extraordinary. Listen to this woman’s inspiring story.

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  • Interview with Tobin Ost

    6-19-2012 Interview

    6-19-12 Nominated for a Tony Award for his work on Newsies, set and costume designer Tobin Ost is Jeff Calhoun’s “secret weapon.” Soft spoken and serious Tobin thought he was going to be an architect. But when, as a high school student he was turned down for a job at an architectural firm, he approached the theater across the street, was hired and the rest is history. Listen to the twists and turns that led Tobin inexorably to what is, without question, his right place.

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  • Interview with Jeremy Jordan

    6-12-12 Interview

    I interviewed the charming as he is talented Jeremy Jordan as he was about to star as the charismatic bad boy Clyde Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde the Musical. Surprisingly he didn’t intend to be an actor, He says that his first auditions for shows at the local community theater, were “horrible” and he “couldn’t even get cast in Peter Pan or Oliver Twist.” But he didn’t mind because he was a really good student and thought he was going to be an engineer. After deciding that engineering was not for him he didn’t know what he was going to do, so he just let life lead him. He sang in the school chorus and was heard by someone who offered him a role in a play. Jeremy was hooked and knew that this was the life he was meant for. And it must be true because at 27 having already starred in Grease and West Side Story, created the role of Clyde Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde –The Musical, appeared in a movie with Dolly Parton, Jeremy is nominated for a Tony Award as Best Actor in a Musical for his standout performance in Newsies . Listen to his story and the extraordinary voice that got him that first role in high school as he sings the beautifully poignant Santa Fe, from the wonderful score of Newsies by Alan Menken and Jack Feldman.

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