2007-2008 Season Sponsors The City of Cerritos gratefully thanks our 2007-2008 Season Sponsors for their generous support of the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts. Season 07/08 Your Favorite Entertainers, Your Favorite Theater If your company would like to become a Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts sponsor, please contact the CCPA Administrative Offices at (562) 916-8510. presents AN EVENING WITH SONNY ROLLINS Saturday, April 5, 2008, 8:00 PM This performance will not include an intermission. The taking of photographs or use of recording devices is strictly prohibited. BIOGRAPHY SONNY ROLLINS was born Walter Theodore film Alfie. At decade’s end he undertook one final hiatus, Rollins in Harlem, New York, on September 7, 1930, to studying Zen Buddhism in Japan and yoga in India. He parents native to the Virgin Islands. His older brother and considered leaving music permanently in order to pursue sister were also musically inclined, but only Rollins veered spiritual studies, but a teacher convinced him that music away from Classical music after his uncle, a professional was his spiritual path. In 1972, with the encouragement saxophonist, introduced him to Jazz and Blues. He gravitated and support of his wife Lucille, who had become his business to the tenor saxophone in high school, inspired in particular manager, Rollins returned to performing and recording, and by Coleman Hawkins. By the time he was out of the release of Next Album. He has worked with school, Rollins was already working with big-name all-star ensembles, including Tommy Flanagan, Jack musicians such as Bud Powell, Fats Navarro, and DeJohnette, Stanley Clarke, and Tony Williams. Roy Haynes. In 1951, he debuted as a leader on In 2001, he won a Grammy Award for “Best Prestige; his affiliation with that label also produced Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group” classics such as Saxophone Colossus, Worktime, and for This Is What I Do. In 2005, he won a Grammy Tenor Madness (with John Coltrane). for “Best Jazz Instrumental Solo” for Why Was I From early 1956 until he went out on his own Born?. Rollins received a “Lifetime Achievement permanently as a leader in the summer of 1957, Award” in 2004 from the National Academy of Rollins played in the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Recording Arts and Sciences. Rollins was inducted Quintet, one of the most definitive Hard-Bop into the Academy of Achievement in 2006 at the ensembles of its day. Often with his own pianoless International Achievement Summit in Los Angeles. trio, Rollins then entered a tremendously fertile period In the midst of a spate of honors – including a Grammy during which he recorded major works such as A Night at Award for “Best Jazz Instrumental Solo” and “Artist of the the Village Vanguard, Way Out West, and Freedom Suite. In Year” and “Tenor Saxophonist of the Year” from the Jazz 1959, Rollins took the first of his legendary sabbaticals from Journalists Association and the Down Beat Critics Poll – music. Living on Manhattan’s lower East Side, he was often Rollins has just released his first new studio recording in five spotted on the nearby Williamsburg Bridge at night, deep in years – Sonny, Please – on his own Doxy label. a rigorous practice regimen. The new CD captures his working band “at a good When Rollins returned to performing in 1961, he pitch,” as Rollins puts it. The group consists of trombonist recorded The Bridge with Jim Hall and Bob Cranshaw, Clifton Anderson; bassist Cranshaw, an esteemed Rollins led a quartet with trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer collaborator since 1959; guitarist Bobby Broom; drummer Billy Higgins, and recorded with his idol Hawkins. He Steve Jordan; and percussionist Kimati Dinizulu. The CD is also received a Grammy nomination for his score for the a mix of originals and standards from his boyhood. g 2 Harold Thau in association with Aruba Productions presents DIRECTED BY Randal Myler MUSICAL DIRECTOR Seth Weinstein COSTUME DESIGN PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER Betsy Waddell Alison Pellegrini SOUND DESIGN TECHNICAL SUPERVISOR Mike Ponder Sharlyne Shlayan GENERAL MANAGER Almost Heaven, LLC CASTING DIRECTOR Arnold Mungioli FEATURING FIDDLE Michael Bojtos Cady Finlayson Rosie Mattia Benjamin Zep Misek GUITAR Ryan Nearhoff Vita Tanga Vernae Taylor KEYBOARDS Seth Weinstein Sunday, April 6, 2008, 3:00 PM There will be one 20-minute intermission. The taking of photographs or use of recording devices is strictly prohibited. 3 MUSICAL NUMBERS All of My Memories For Bobbie Rhymes & Reasons Draft Dodger Rag Take Me Home, Country Roads Rhymes & Reasons (Reprise) Fly Away I Guess He’d Rather Be in Colorado Rocky Mountain High Matthew / Weapons Calypso INTERMISSION Thank God I’m a Country Boy Grandma’s Feather Bed Love / Leave Medley Leaving on a Jet Plane For You Looking for Space (Excerpt) I’m Sorry Sunshine on My Shoulders Looking for Space Poems, Prayers & Promises Yellowstone Encore BIOGRAPHIES MICHAEL BOJTOS holds a bachelor of fine arts a Good Man, Charlie Brown. In 2007, she debuted in the degree in musical theater performance from East Carolina musical Follow Me in the role of Mistress of Ceremonies. University. His credits include starring roles in Dora the Mattia starred in the independent feature filmAnd So Life Explorer’s Pirate Adventure (international tour), Thomas the Goes On, which was screened at the Montclair Film Festival Tank Engine Live! On Stage (world premiere), A Chorus Line, and Hoboken International Film Festival. She would like to Godspell, Hair, Grease, and Little Shop of Horrors. He sends thank all of her family and friends for their constant support thanks and love to family. and God for natural gifts and guidance. ROSIE MATTIA is originally from Rochester, New BENJAMIN ZEP MISEK is excited to join the cast York, and graduated from SUNY Fredonia with a bachelor of of Almost Heaven: Songs of John Denver. Misek trained at arts degree in musical theater. She also studied at Middlesex American Musical Dramatic Academy in New York. His University in London, England, in an intensive acting regional theater credits include Made in America: Irving Berlin program. Mattia’s favorite regional roles include Philia in and Fiddler on the Roof (Gretna Theatre). Misek’s other A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; Hodel theater credits include Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor in Fiddler on the Roof; Rizzo in Grease; and Lucy in You’re Continued on page 5 4 Dreamcoat, Kiss Me Kate, Harvey, Smoke on the Mountain, Centre Georges Pompidou in his hometown Paris. Tanga is a and West Side Story. He would like to thank his family for sought-after freelance musician and composer in film scoring their love and support. and the World/Urban music industry. For more details, log RYAN NEARHOFF’s credits include Anything on to myspace.com/vitaaguitar. Goes (Williamstown Theater Festival), Romeo and Juliet SETH WEINSTEIN (Music Director/Keyboards) (Williamstown), The Wonderful World of Christmas composed the music for the recent Off-Broadway musical (Candlelight Pavillion), Seussical, Cabaret, and Big River. How to Save the World and Find True Love in 90 Minutes. He has also performed alongside Gladys Knight, The Doobie He also wrote a commissioned piano suite inspired by the Brothers, and Chicago at the Honda Center in Anaheim. paintings of Marc Chagall, which premiered in 2007, and has Nearhoff is a graduate of California State University, performances scheduled this year in France and Germany. Fullerton with a bachelor of fine arts degree in musical He has directed the musicals Titanic, Side Show, Guys and theater. He would like to thank everyone who supports him Dolls, Rags, Fiddler on the Roof, Do I Hear a Waltz?, and on and off stage. A New Brain. Weinstein toured for two seasons with the VERNAE TAYLOR, a New Jersey songstress, makes international company of Fosse. For more information, visit her touring debut with Almost Heaven: Songs of John Denver. www.sethweinstein.com. Taylor graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in RANDAL MYLER (Director) was nominated for communications. She has balanced acting and singing with an Outer Critic’s Circle Award for “Outstanding Direction teaching seventh and eighth grade. Her credits include of a Musical” for Hank Williams: Lost Highway, which Quilt, African Extravaganza, The Wiz, Smokey Joe’s Café, and he wrote with Mark Harelik at the Little Shubert. He is Showtime at the Apollo tour. She would like to dedicate this also the co-author and director of It Ain’t Nothing But the performance to “The World’s Greatest Aunt” for supporting Blues at Lincoln Center, which received four Tony Award her since the beginning of her career at age 5, and to her nominations, including “Best Musical” and “Best Book of talented brother for his wisdom and constructive criticism. a Musical.” He wrote and directed the Off-Broadway hit CADY FINLAYSON (Fiddle) has played the fiddle Love, Janis, which ran for two years at the former Village since childhood and is described as “a remarkable talent” Gate. He has directed at Ambassador Theater in New York, and “one of America’s top Celtic fiddlers.” Finlayson has Promenade Theatre, The New Victory Theater, Manhattan performed in venues across the country, including Carnegie Ensemble Theater, and Joe’s Pub The Public Theater. He has Hall, Palace Theatre Cleveland, and Palace on the Green. also directed at theaters across the country, including Seattle The Cady Finlayson Band plays throughout the East Coast Repertory Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, The Kennedy and its music can be heard in the filmsThe Emerald Diamond, Center, Denver Center Theatre Company, Mark Taper Snakes and Ladders, and Random Acts. Finlayson’s three CDs, Forum, Geffen Playhouse, Actors Theatre of Louisville, which blend traditional fiddle tunes with American Folk Cleveland Play House, Arizona Theatre Company, Alabama roots, have attracted listeners from Australia to Japan.