Porchlight Music Theatre announces its next virtual offering, the latest edition of its New Faces Sing Broadway series, New Faces Sing Broadway 1961 hosted by Kelvin Roston, Jr., directed by Brianna Borger and with music direction and arrangements by Tom Vendafreddo. New Faces Sing Broadway 1961 was filmed on-site at Chicago’s historic Studebaker Theatre and will be available for streaming beginning Friday, April 16 at 12 p.m. Central time through Sunday, May 16. Tickets are $25 - $50 and are on sale now. For more information, visit PorchlightMusicTheatre.org or call the Porchlight Music Theatre box office at 773.777.9884.
Porchlight Music Theatre’s New Faces Sing Broadway series returns, taking audiences on a musical journey from the start to the finish of an entire Broadway season in 90 minutes. Jeff Award-winning actor Kelvin Roston, Jr. is the host and introduces the audience, virtually, to the next generation of Chicago music theatre artists while serving as the guide to the stars, songs and stories of the 1961 Broadway season.
The 1961 cast of New Faces includes Lexie Bailey, Nicole Barth, Marcus Canada, Chloe Howard, Izzie Jones, Clare Kennedy, Maurice Rex Randle, Abraham Shaw and Tommy Thurston.
The production team of New Faces Sing Broadway 1961 includes: Brianna Borger (director); Tom Vendafreddo (music director and arrangements); Alex Rhyan (director of production); Christopher Pazdernik (producing associate and company manager); CastleLight Productions (video, editing and audio services) and Michael Weber (artistic director).
ABOUT KELVIN ROSTON, JR., host
Kelvin Roston, Jr. is an award winning actor with a Jeff Award, three-time Black Theater Alliance Awards, two Black Excellence Awards and a NAMI Award. Rolston has appeared on stages in Chicago including Court Theatre, Congo Square, Paramount, Marriott-Lincolnshire, Goodman, ITC, Eta, Writers, Black Ensemble, Timeline, Northlight and Steppenwolf. Regionally, he has appeared at The Black Rep (St. Louis, MO), Fulton (Lancaster, PA), New Theatre (Overland Park, KS), MSMT (Brunswick, ME), Baltimore Center Stage (Baltimore, MD), Mosaic (Washington DC) and Apollo (New York, NY). His international credits include Orb (Tokyo, Japan) and Festival Hall (Osaka, Japan). Roston has appeared on the television on “Chicago Med,” “Chicago PD,” “KFC,” “Instant Care” and “Ace Hardware” and in the films “Get a Job,” “Princess Cyd” and “Breathing Room.”
ABOUT BRIANNA BORGER, director
Brianna Borger has been a professional singer and actor for over 20 years, with 15 of those spent in Chicago. At Porchlight, Borger has previously directed New Faces Sing Broadway 1956. She has appeared in Chicago at a variety of theatres including Writers Theatre, Windy City Playhouse and the Mercury Theatre. Regionally, she has performed at Peninsula Players, The Armory, Northern Stage and Alaska Shakespeare Festival and was part of the Broadway Asia The King & I tour. Borger has been twice nominated for the Jeff Award and teaches musical theatre voice and audition technique for students and professionals.
ABOUT TOM VENDAFREDDO, music director and arrangements
Tom Vendafreddo has previously music directed Porchlight’s New Faces Sing Broadway NOW (2020) and most of the Paramount Theatre’s Broadway Series since the fall of 2013, including Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, for which he won the 2017 Joseph Jefferson Award for outstanding music direction. Other Chicago credits include productions at Writers Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Marriott Theatre and Bohemian Ensemble (Jeff Nominee for The Spitfire Grill and A Little Night Music). Select regional credits include Billy Elliott (Signature Theatre, DC), The Who’s Tommy (Music Theatre Heritage), Murder for Two (Mason Street Warehouse) and Rent (San Diego Musical Theatre). He received his Bachelor of Music degree from Eastman School of Music and his Master of Fine Arts degree from San Diego State University.
ABOUT PORCHLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE
Porchlight Music Theatre is the award-winning center for music theatre in Chicago. Through live performance, youth education and community outreach we impact thousands of lives each season, bringing the magic of musicals to our theatre home at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts in the Gold Coast and to neighborhoods across the city. Porchlight has built a national reputation for boldly reimagining classic musicals, supporting new works and young performers, and showcasing Chicago’s most notable music theatre artists, all through the intimate and powerful theatrical lens of the “Chicago Style.”
Now in our 26th season, our quarter-century production history includes more than 70 mainstage works with 15 Chicago premieres and five world premieres. Porchlight’s commitment to the past, present and future of music theatre led the company to develop the Porchlight Revisits and New Faces Sing Broadway program series, both quickly becoming audience favorites.
Porchlight's education and outreach programs serve schools, youth of all ages and skill levels and community organizations, most notably our ongoing collaboration with Chicago Youth Centers. We annually award dozens of full scholarships and hundreds of free tickets to ensure accessibility and real engagement with this uniquely American art form.
The company’s many honors include 178 Joseph Jefferson Award (Jeff) nominations and 45 Jeff awards, as well as 33 Black Theatre Alliance (BTA) nominations and 12 BTA awards. In 2019, Porchlight graduated to the Large Theatre tier of the Equity Jeff Awards, and was honored with eight nominations in both technical and artistic categories and won three awards in our inaugural year in this tier, most notably Best Ensemble for Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies.
Through the global pandemic, Porchlight has emerged as one of Chicago’s leaders in virtual programming, quickly launching a host of free offerings like Sondheim @ 90 Roundtables, Movie Musical Mondays, Porchlight by Request: Command Performances and WPMT: Classic Musicals from the Golden Age of Radio. For the 2020-2021 season, Porchlight’s fall schedule included all-new ticketed virtual programs including Broadway by the Decade, New Faces Sing Broadway 1987 and the return of The Ruffians’ Burning Bluebeard as well as collaborations with Hershey Felder and L.A. Theatre Works. Porchlight continues to announce new premium and free offerings in 2021.
Porchlight Music Theatre announces its next virtual offering, the next episode of its New Faces Sing Broadway series, New Faces Sing Broadway 1961 hosted by Kelvin Roston, Jr., directed by Brianna Borger and with music direction and arrangements by Tom Vendafreddo. New Faces Sing Broadway 1961 was filmed on-site at Chicago’s historic Studebaker Theatre, and will be available for streaming beginning Friday, April 16 at 12 p.m. Central time through Sunday, May 16. Tickets are $25 - $50 and are on sale now. For more information, visit PorchlightMusicTheatre.org or call the Porchlight Music Theatre box office at 773.777.9884.
Porchlight Music Theatre is partially supported by generous contributions from Actors’ Equity Foundation; Allstate; Bayless Family Foundation; Michael Best & Friedrich LLP; Chapman | Spingola, LLP; Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation; Gen Ops Plus; Elegant Event Lighting; Glimpse Vision; James P. and Brenda S. Grusecki Family Foundation; Hearty Boys; A.L. and Jennie L. Luria Foundation; The MacArthur Fund for Culture, Equity, and the Arts at Prince; the Pritzker Traubert Foundation; Ryan and Spaeth, Inc.; Daniel and Genevieve Ratner Foundation; The Saints and Dr. Scholl Foundation.
The season program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, a state agency, and by a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.
Porchlight Music Theatre wishes to thank members of the Matching Gift Corporate Program including abbvie; Allstate; Lloyd A. Fry Foundation; Peoples Gas; Pepsico; Polk Bros Foundation and The Saints.