Sun Oct 11, 2020 @ 7:00 pm

Lonesome Traveler: The Concert

With special guest Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul & Mary

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This performance has been cancelled - all ticketholders will be contacted by the box office with further information.

Background

Lonesome Traveler shattered box office records and won multiple awards in its acclaimed premiere at Rubicon Theatre in California. Authentic young singer/multi-instrumentalists take audiences on a journey down the rivers and streams of American Folk music — from the hills of Appalachia to the nightclubs of New York and San Francisco; from the 1920s to the 1960s. Along the way, the performers pay homage to many legendary folk musicians including Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, The Carter Family, The Weavers, The Kingston Trio, The Limeliters, Gordon Lightfoot, Ian & Sylvia, and Peter Paul & Mary; offering heartfelt, moving renditions of more than 30 songs, including “Lonesome Traveler,” “This Land is Your Land,” “Deportee,” “If I Had a Hammer,” “Goodnight Irene,” “Tom Dooley,” “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” ‘Someday Soon,” Early Mornin’ Rain,” “All My Trials,” “Midnight Special,” “Turn, Turn, Turn,” and many others.

CAST

Matty Charles (The Poet) is an American singer/songwriter and guitar player who writes classic, economical songs that channel iconic balladeers like Hank Williams, Leonard Cohen, and Johnny Cash. His music is deeply rooted in traditional American folk and country styles, exploring themes of love, loss, and longing. “Instead of songs about sadness that leave listeners feeling alone, Charles’s lyrics and smooth guitar riffs wrap their arms around his listeners and hold them tight.” (SF Reporter)

Sylvie Davidson (The Lady) is a graduate of Knox College in Galesburg, IL and a native Seattlite.  An actor and singer/ songwriter, she has worked extensively in the Pacific Northwest with ACT (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, A Christmas Carol), Book-It Repertory Theatre (Emma, The Art of Racing in the Rain, Great Expectations, The Highest Tide, Night Flight), Seattle Children’s Theatre (Getting Near to Baby), Island Stage Left (The Tempest, As You Like It, Winters Tale), and New Century Theatre Company (Tails of Wasps).  Most recently, she created the role of Becca in the world premier production of Stephanie Timm’s “Tails of Wasps” with NCTC.  Four years ago, she met the love of her life, Trevor Wheetman, while working on the first iteration of Lonesome Traveler.  She now lives with him in Nashville, TN where they are pursuing songwriting and looking forward to soon becoming one of the many married couples brought together by folk music.

Jamie Drake (The Activist) A songwriter for a father, a Pentecostal church upbringing, and moves from place to place; these are all elements of Jamie Drake’s unique brand of folk music. Beyond her unique vocal tone and songwriting, anyone who knows her or hears her sing recognizes something real and essential about her life in her songs. She shares a little bit of the heartache she’s experienced and hopes it will gives others courage to get through it, too. Jamie’s interest in music began as a musical theatre performer in high school and continued with training in New York at the America Musical and Dramatic Academy. She recorded her first album “When I Was Yours” in 2010. After a yearlong residency at Crane’s Tavern in Hollywood, Jamie went on the road opening for Tim Robbins and the Rogues Gallery Band. Her newest endeavor “Nobel.”

Justin Flagg (The Lonesome Traveler) is thrilled to be sharing the stage again with such a wonderful group of actors and musicians, having been with Lonesome Traveler since it’s world premier in 2011.  Justin studied acting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and has appeared on stage and screen throughout the US and UK.  He recently received a degree in Social Policy from The New School, and he is currently working as the Communications Liaison for New York State Senator Liz Krueger, representing the Upper East Side of Manhattan.  Justin has released two albums and appears regularly throughout NYC and beyond with his alt-folk band, The New Students.

Sam Gelfer (Musician) is a musician, educator, conductor and arranger from Brookhaven NY.  Sam has maintained a busy schedule of performing with fellow cast member Justin Flag in their folk band The New Students.  The band has recorded and released two albums comprised of original music inspired by American folk styles, bluegrass, and the 21st century.  In addition to keeping up with The New Students’ performance schedule in New York City and Long Island, Sam also hones his classical bass chops in Long Island’s newest chamber ensemble, the New Inlet Chamber Orchestra.  As a co-founder of the ensemble, Sam arranges many community outreach concerts which are always free and open to the public.

Anthony Manough (The Man) has been nominated for the Helen Hayes Award and L.A.’s Ovation Award. His NY credits include Disney’s The Lion King as Simba and Bonsai, and Jesus and Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar. Rubicon Theatre credits include Man of La Mancha and Songs for a New World. Most recently, he appeared in Much Ado about Nothing for Shakespeare Center/L.A, as Andre in Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Cabrillo Music Theatre.

Nicholas Mongiardo-Cooper (The Preacher) Off-Broadway: Julius Caesar (TFANA)Other NY credits: SubUrbia, The Female Terrorists ProjectIolanthe, Slavs!, Sympathetic Magic and Three Days of Rain. Regional credits: Our Lady of 121st StreetDr. Tedrow’s Last BreathFerdinand the BullBehind the GatesSlaughterhouse Five and Speed Merchant (Action! Theatre) Junie B. JonesLucky Duck, The Borrowers, The Night Fairy, The Stinky Cheese Man, Charlotte’s Web and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (South Coast Repertory), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (SBCCLO) and Side Show (La Jolla). He created the role of Ira Gershwin in Words By at North Coast Repertory Theatre (San Diego Theatre Critics Circle Nomination).

Jennifer Leigh Warren (The Muse) was the original Crystal in Little Shop of Horrors at the Orpheum Theater. Broadway credits include Big River (with the song “How Blest we Are” written for her by Roger Miller), Marie Christine (original Cast). She performed her NAACP Theatre Award-nominated performance as Julia in Having it All at The Laguna Playhouse and NoHo Arts. Other regional credits include Sir Peter Hall’s Shakespeare Repertory Company at the Ahmanson Theater, The Education of Randy NewmanHairKismet, Little RockPrincess and the Black-eyed Pea. TV credits include Pretty Little LiarsLipstick Jungle, ER, Scrubs, The Game, All My Children. On The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel and CONAN, she performed with OK GO, Lisa Loeb, The Kills, Moon Taxi, Trombone Shorty. In Denmark, she performed with Al Jarreau; and Big River in Japan (in Japanese!). Awards include Broadway World Awards for both Songs of Dame Shirley Bassey (directed by Richard Jay-Alexander) and the Lythgoe family Panto Cinderella Christmas in the same year, as well as numerous L.A. Ovation Award nominations and win,Backstage Garland Award and the Heiman Creative Arts Award at Dartmouth College. 

Trevor Wheetman (Musician/Associate Musical Director) is the sort of chap who believes in the mystical power of music which can heal wounds, open minds and end wars. As a songwriter, he strives to create music which will be sung in showers and dive bars everywhere. Keep your eye out for them in Nashville, where they have moved to pursue songwriting.

Peter Yarrow (born May 31, 1938) is an American singer and songwriter who found fame with the 1960s folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Yarrow co-wrote (with Leonard Lipton) one of the group’s greatest hits, “Puff, the Magic Dragon”. Yarrow began singing in public during his last year at Cornell while participating in Professor Harold Thompson’s popular American Folk Literature course, colloquially known on campus as “Romp-n-Stomp.” The course was “a highlight of late-1950s student life at Cornell”, Yarrow reminisced, and the ability to sing and play guitar was a prerequisite for enrollment.

Upon graduation he played in folk clubs in New York City, appeared on the CBS television show, Folk Sound USA, and the following summer performed at the Newport Folk Festival, where he met manager and musical impresario Albert Grossman. One day, the two were at Israel Young’s Folklore Center in Greenwich Village discussing Grossman’s idea for a new group that would be “an updated version of the Weavers for the baby-boom generation … with the crossover appeal of the Kingston Trio”. Yarrow noticed a picture of Mary Travers on the wall and asked Grossman who she was. “That’s Mary Travers,” Grossman said. “She’d be good if you could get her to work.” To draw her out, “Mr. Yarrow went to Ms. Travers’s apartment where they harmonized on ‘Miner’s Lifeguard’, a union song, and decided that their voices blended. To fill out the trio, Ms. Travers suggested Noel Stookey, a friend doing folk music and stand-up comedy at the Gaslight. They chose the catchy “Peter, Paul and Mary” as the name for their group, since Noel Stookey’s middle name was Paul, and rehearsed intensively for six months, touring outside New York before debuting in 1961 as a polished act at The Bitter End nightclub in Greenwich Village. There the singers quickly developed a following and signed a contract with Warner Brothers.

Warner released “Lemon Tree” as a single in early 1962, then followed with the trio’s version of “If I Had a Hammer”, written in 1949 by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays to protest the imprisonment of Harlem City Councilman Benjamin J. Davis, Jr. under the Smith Act. “If I had a Hammer” garnered two Grammy Awards in 1962. The trio’s first album, the eponymous Peter, Paul & Mary remained in the Top 10 for ten months, in the Top 20 for two years and sold more than two million copies. The group toured extensively and recorded numerous albums, both live and in the studio. In June 1963 they released a 7″ single of “Blowin’ in the Wind” by the then relatively unknown, Bob Dylan, also managed by Grossman. “Blowin’ in the Wind” sold 300,000 copies in the first week of release and by August 17 was number two on the Billboard pop chart, with sales exceeding one million copies. Yarrow recalled that when he told Dylan he would make more than $5,000 (equivalent to $42,000 in 2019) from the publishing rights, Dylan was speechless. On August 28, 1963, Peter, Paul and Mary appeared on stage with the Reverend Martin Luther King at his historic March on Washington where their performance of “Blowin’ in the Wind” established it as a civil rights anthem. Their version also spent weeks on Billboard‘s easy listening chart. By 1964 the 26-year-old Yarrow had joined the Board of the Newport Folk Festival, where he had performed as an unknown just four years earlier.

Yarrow’s songwriting helped to create some of Peter, Paul and Mary’s best-known songs, including “Puff, the Magic Dragon”, “Day Is Done,” “Light One Candle”, and “The Great Mandala”. As a member of that folk music trio, he earned a 1996 Emmy nomination for the Great Performances special LifeLines Live, a highly acclaimed celebration of folk music, with their musical mentors, contemporaries, and a new generation of singer/songwriters.

Yarrow was instrumental in founding the New Folks Concert series at both the Newport Folk Festival and the Kerrville Folk Festival. His work at Kerrville has been called his “most important achievement in this arena.”

He co-wrote and produced “Torn Between Two Lovers”, a number one hit for Mary McGregor. He also produced three CBS TV specials based on “Puff, the Magic Dragon”, which earned an Emmy nomination for him. In 1978 Yarrow organized Survival Sunday, an antinuclear benefit, and after a period of separation, he was once again joined by Stookey and Travers.

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Mayo Performing Arts Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, presents a wide range of programs that entertain, enrich, and educate the diverse population of the region and enhance the economic vitality of Northern New Jersey.

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