By Andrew Gans
09 Nov 2004

The stars of the original 2000 staging of Songs for a New World will reunite for Jason Robert Brown's upcoming concert at Le Jazz Au Bar in Manhattan.

About the Nov. 15 performance, Tony-winning composer Brown said by e-mail, "The original cast of Songs for a New World will be reuniting on the stage of Le Jazz Au Bar, and they'll be performing as much material from the show as they can remember after all the abuse they've been through since 1995. That's Andrea Burns, Brooks Ashmanskas, Jessica Molaskey and Billy Porter, who all worked for $240 a week at the WPA Theater nine years ago, if you can believe that. I haven't been able to get them all together on a stage since New Year's of 2000."

The upcoming evening will also feature the talents of The Opposite of Sex's Kerry Butler, who will perform a song from the new Brown-Andrew Bergman musical Honeymoon in Vegas; young singer Krista Pioppi, who will offer a tune from another new Brown work, 13, a musical for a cast of 13-year-olds that he's written with Dan Elish; Urban Cowboy singer-actress Jenn Collella; and musicians Gary Sieger, Randy Landau and Dean Thomas. Show time is 8 PM.

Jason Robert Brown, who was the musical director and arranger for the musical Urban Cowboy, won the Tony Award for Best Score for his Broadway debut, Parade. His two-person musical, The Last Five Years, played a brief run at Off-Broadway's Minetta Lane Theatre, and was preserved on Sh-K-Boom Records. Brown also composed the score for Songs for a New World and wrote incidental music for Fuddy Meers, Kimberly Akimbo, The Waverly Gallery and the Irish Repertory Theatre's production of Long Day's Journey Into Night.

Le Jazz Au Bar is located in Manhattan at 41 East 58th Street. Call (212) 308-9455 for reservations. Tickets are priced $22 (mention the code JRB15).