SHOUT! The Mod Musical
April 29 - May 15, 2011

ABOUT SHOUT! THE MOD MUSICAL!

SHOUT! is a non-stop journey through the infectious and soulful pop anthems of the 1960s that made household names of stars like Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield and Lulu. In this groovy, tuneful musical, hits like To Sir With Love, Downtown, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, Son of A Preacher Man, and Goldfinger frame the journey of five women during those liberating days of the Sixties that made England swing!

The first edition of SHOUT! appeared on stage at the Duplex in New York in 2000 and then transferred to London's Jermyn Street Theatre, where it was nominated as Best Musical by WhatsOnStage. SHOUT! had the London critics raving during its sold-out run there in 2001. The Times cheered, SHOUT! “captures all the soulful heartbreak of the '60s diva songbook.” WhatsOnStage.com said, “Here's a show to really shout about!… hits you with a burst of noisy energy and sheer talent that simply takes your breath away.”

SHOUT! ran Off-Broadway at The Julia Miles Theatre in New York City for 176 performances in 2006. Good Morning America called SHOUT! “The hottest new musical in New York.” TimeOut raved “SHOUT! rivals Jersey Boys for sheer fun.” “Sassy, saucy and immensely satisfying… it's simply smashing!” glowed the New Jersey Courier-Post. “Clever and charming… gets 'em up dancing!” declared the Scottsdale AZ Tribune.

PHILLIP GEORGE: Original Concept | Original Director

As a director, Phillip George's credits include 14 editions of the infamous Forbidden Broadway revue in New York, as well as Chicago, London, Los Angeles, and the National Tour. The most recent edition, Forbidden Broadway's Summer Shock! is currently playing at the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre in NYC. Forbidden Broadway 2001: A Spoof Odyssey! won the 2001 Drama Desk Award for Best Revue. Forbidden Broadway Cleans Up Its Act! was nominated for four Drama Desk Awards and was recorded by DRG Records. The London edition of Forbidden Broadway recently transferred from the Jermyn Street Theatre to the Albery Theatre in the West End of London.

George also directed Forbidden Hollywood both in New York and Los Angeles and continues to work on its various incarnations. In 1993 he collaborated with Howard Crabtree and others on Whoop-Dee-Doo, directing both the acclaimed New York and London productions. He was also the associate director to Mark Waldrop on When Pigs Fly at the Douglas Fairbanks. With David Lowenstein he created and directed SHOUT! The Mod Musical, which premiered at the Duplex and then moved to the Jermyn Street Theatre in London. He has also directed performers at La Mama, PS 122, and HERE & NADA.

Other United States directing credits include: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (5th Avenue Theatre, Seattle, WA), Return To The Forbidden Planet (American Heartland Theatre, Kansas City, MO), The Secret Garden (Paper Mill, NJ, as assistant to David Armstrong), Best Little Whorehouse (Gateway Playhouse, NY), Annie Get Your Gun, Footloose, Philemon, The Roar Of The Greasepaint, and A Doctor In Spite Of Himself.

As a resident director at the King's Head Theatre in London, UK, His work includes: Kean, Much Revue About Nothing, The Famous Five, The Arcadians, and Frankly, Scarlett which he co-authored with longtime collaborator Peter Charles Morris. He also directed the first production of Escape From Pterodactyl Island at the Pleasance Theatre in London and at the 2004 New York Fringe Festival. He is currently working on two projects: A Slave To Genius, and The Bleeding Heart Revue.

DAVID LOWENSTEIN: Original Concept | Original Choreography

David Lowenstein's association with Phillip George began in 1993, when he created musical staging and tap choreography for the Drama Desk award winning Howard Crabtree's Whoop-Dee-Doo! Most recently they mounted a critically acclaimed revival of The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas at the famed Gateway Playhouse in Bellport, Long Island, NY. In between David's choreography has been featured in such varying projects as Vanessa Williams' Christmas Special, produced for ABC Television, and the HBO Documentary Dragtime, produced by Fred Rydel.

On Broadway, David conceived and choreographed the 1776 entry in the 1998 Easter Bonnet Competition, which won “Best Presentation.” His Off-Broadway credits include among others: the only New York revival of On A Clear Day You Can See Forever at the Harold Clurman Theater, and Sing For Your Supper at the Di Capo Arts Theater.

Regionally David created the street dancing that interconnected the scenes of Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice at Syracuse Stage, NY. He has also directed and choreographed the acclaimed productions of Dames At Sea, and Trixie True, Teen Detective at The Theatre Barn, NY. Summer Stock theaters in New York have showcased his work in Grease, I Love My Wife, and Anything Goes, to name a few.

All of this work has fit in with a successful performing career featuring seven Broadway shows, three Off-Broadway shows, four National Tours, and countless regional and stock productions.

With a BFA in Musical Theater from Syracuse University, David has taught Theater Dance and Musical Theater Performance at New York University, Syracuse Stage, Le Moyne College, and Salt Lake City Center For The Performing Arts.

PETER CHARLES MORRIS: Mod Musings | Groovy Gab

Peter Charles Morris is the coauthor and co-lyricist of Howard Crabtree's Whoop-Dee-Doo!, winner of the 1994 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical Revue. Escape From Pterodactyl Island, a Sci-Fi musical adventure for which he wrote the book and lyrics premiered in London in 1999, and had its first American production at the 2003 New York International Fringe Festival. Other produced works include: Frankly Scarlett, a farce co-authored with Phillip George about the making of Gone With The Wind, The Remarkable Ruth Fields, a musical about the trials and tribulations of a bearded lady (which received five 1992 Backstage Bistro Awards), and Listen To The Wind, the 1995 revival of the 1955 British musical, for which he fashioned a new libretto.

His musical version of William Makepeace Thackeray's fairy tale novella, The Rose And The Ring, premiered in London in 2001, and had an international tour of Canada, England, and Australia in early 2004. He has written numerous one-act plays, winning the 2003 Tennessee Williams One-Act Play Competition for The World's Longest Kiss. He has also contributed material to several revues, as well as the musical Funny Business, which recently played at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles, CA.

His full-length play Come On-A My House had its world premiere at South Carolina's Trutus Theater in August 2004. He has also served as script consultant for My Favorite Broadway: The Love Songs, which was performed at New York's City Center and subsequently aired on PBS. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop, and The Westchester Arts Council.

THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT: THE 1960s

Women's rights by the 1960s the movement was called "feminism" or "women's liberation." Reformers wanted the same pay as men, equal rights in law, and the freedom to plan their families or not have children at all. Their efforts were met at first with mixed results.

In the USA, the National Organization for Women (NOW) was created in 1966 with the purpose of bringing about equality for all women. NOW was one important group that fought for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). This amendment stated that "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex." But there was disagreement on how the proposed amendment would be understood. Supporters believed it would guarantee women equal treatment. But critics feared it might deny women the right be financially supported by their husbands. ERAs have been included in subsequent Congresses, but have still failed to be ratified.

THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT: A 1960s TIMELINE

• 1960 The Food and Drug Administration approves birth control pills.
• 1960 Women now earn only 60 cents for every dollar earned by men, a decline since 1955. Women of color earn only 42 cents.
• 1963 The Equal Pay Act, proposed twenty years earlier, establishes equal pay for men and women performing the same job duties. It does not cover domestics, executives, administrators or professionals.
• 1963 Betty Friedan's best-seller, The Feminine Mystique, detailed the "problem that has no name." Five million copies are sold by 1970, laying the groundwork for the modern feminist movement.
• 1964 Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bars employment discrimination by private employers, employment agencies, and unions based on race, sex, and other grounds. To investigate complaints and enforce penalties, it establishes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which receives 50,000 complaints of gender discrimination in its first 5 years.
• 1966 In response to EEOC inaction on employment discrimination complaints, twenty-eight women found the National Organization for Women to function as a civil rights organization for women.
• 1968 New York Radical Women garner media attention to the women's movement when they protest the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City.
• 1968 The first national women's liberation conference is held in Chicago.
• 1968 The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) is founded.
• 1968 Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) is first Black woman elected to the US Congress.
• 1970 The Equal Rights Amendment is reintroduced into Congress.

FOUR 1960s BRIT SONGBIRD BIOS

CILLA BLACK, (born 27 May 1943) is an English singer, actress, entertainer and media personality, who has been consistently popular as a entertainment figure since 1963. She is most famous worldwide for her hit recordings of Anyone Who Had A Heart, You're My World, and Alfie. After a successful recording career and a brief time as a comedy actress, she became the best paid female presenter in British television history. In May 2010, new research published by BBC Radio 2 revealed that Cilla Black was the biggest selling female chart star of the 1960s in Great Britain with her single Anyone Who Had A Heart.

PETULA CLARK, (born 15 November 1932) is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades. Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II. During the 1960s she became known internationally for her popular upbeat hits, including Downtown, I Know a Place, My Love, Color My World, A Sign of the Times, and Don't Sleep in the Subway. She has sold over 68 million records throughout her career. Clark's recording successes led to appearances on American variety programs hosted by Ed Sullivan and Dean Martin, guest shots on Hullabaloo, Shindig!, The Kraft Music Hall, and The Hollywood Palace. She is also noted as a musical actress, having appeared in the late 60s movie musicals Finian's Rainbow, and Goodbye Mr. Chips.

LULU KENNEDY-CAIRNS, (born 3 November 1948), best known by her stage name Lulu, is a Scottish singer, actress, and television personality who has been successful in the entertainment business from the 1960s through today. She is famous for the title song from the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, in North America for the film theme "To Sir, with Love" and in the UK for her first hit Shout and her Eurovision Song Contest winning entry Boom Bang-a-Bang. Her 2002 autobiography was called I Don't Want to Fight after the hit song she and her brother wrote for Tina Turner. Her 2002 gold album Together was a collection of duets with Elton John and Paul McCartney among others, tracks from which were performed in a high profile TV special, An Audience With Lulu, which saw Lulu reunited with her first husband Maurice Gibb of the BeeGee's for a live performance of First of May.

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD (16 April 1939 - 2 March 1999) was one of the bestselling British singers of the 1960s, and who made a huge impression on the American market, scoring 18 singles in the Billboard Hot 100 from 1964 to 1970. Her solo career began in 1963 with the upbeat pop hit, I Only Want To Be With You. Among the hits that followed were Wishin' and Hopin', You Don't Have to Say You Love Me and Son of a Preacher Man. To boost her credibility as a soul artist, Springfield went to Memphis, Tennessee, to record an album of soul music. Released in 1969, Dusty in Memphis has been ranked among the greatest albums of all time by Rolling Stone. The album was also was awarded a spot in the Grammy Hall of Fame. She died of cancer in 1999.

Barn Players “SHOUT!” Dramaturgy © 2011; Ross Harmon.