Porchlight Music Theatre’s first New Faces Sing Broadway concert of 2022, New Faces Sing Broadway 1947 with host Robin DaSilva, directed by Adrian Abel Azevedo, music directed by Linda Madonia and featuring ten new up and coming talents performing songs from the 1947 Broadway season begins streaming Friday, April 8. New Faces Sing Broadway 1947 was filmed on-site at The Ruth Page Center for the Arts and will be available for streaming through Thursday, May 5 at 11:59 p.m. CDT. 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.
Host Robin DaSilva and the New Faces, a cast made up of the next generation of talent, take the audience on a musical journey from the start to the finish of the 1947 Broadway season in 90 minutes with songs, historic information, trivia and sing alongs. The latest New Faces features songs from the Broadway shows Brigadoon, Finian’s Rainbow, High Button Shoes, Annie Get Your Gun and others filmed at The Ruth Page Center for the Arts where Porchlight Music Theatre is an in-resident organization.
The New Faces Sing Broadway 1947 cast includes Samantha Behen (she/her/hers), Anna Brockman (she/her/hers), Jonah Cochin (he/him/his), Breanna Ghostone (she/her/hers), Nathan Karnik (he/him/his), Austin Nelson Jr. (he/him/his), Oliver Schilling (he/him/his), Destiny Strothers (she/her/hers) and Ciarra Stroud (she/her/hers) and Austin Winter (he/him/his/they/them/theirs).
The production team includes Adrian Abel Azevedo (he/him/his), director; Linda Madonia (she/her/hers), music director; Mark Brown (he/him/his), lighting technician; Chollette (he/him/his), video editor; Austin Crowley (he/him/his), videographer; Matthew Chase (he/him/his), sound designer; Alex Groesch (he/him/his), assistant camera op.; Frankie Leo Bennett (he/him/his), producing artistic associate; Alex Rhyan (he/him/his), production & operations director and Michael Weber (he/him/his), artistic director.
ABOUT ROBIN DASILVA, host
Multi-Award winner Robin DaSilva’s regional credits include: Mercury Theater Chicago (Women Of Soul), Porchlight Music Theater (Ain’t Misbehavin, Gypsy), Theater at the Center (A Christmas Memory), Theo Ubique (Smokey Joe’s Café), NIETF Foundation (Ragtime), Penumbra Theater (Joe Turner’s Come and Gone), Mixed Blood Theater (A… My Name Is Alice), Black Ensemble Theatre (Feel Good Music Review), (Holiday Extravaganza), (The Other Cinderella), (Women of Soul), (Mahalia Jackson: Moving Through the Light). For her role in Mahalia, she won the 2019 Joseph Jefferson and the BTAA Awards for Performer in A Revue. As a vocal arranger, she has arranged for many churches, recording artists, commercials, tv shows and musical theater productions. TV: T-Mobile’s “Home for the Holidays Surprise” and HBO’s “Southside.”
ABOUT ADRIAN ABEL AZEVEDO, director
Originally from Southern California, Adrian Abel Azevedo is a director, producer and teaching artist. He is an alumni of Columbia College Chicago. He has directed, produced and taught for Chicagoland theatre companies including Goodman Theatre, Porchlight Music Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Steep Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Kokandy Productions, Teatro Vista and Music Theatre Works.
ABOUT LINDA MADONIA, music director
Linda Madonia has been musical directing in the Chicago area for more than 25 years including Porchlight’s recent New Faces Sing Broadway 1979 and Chicago Sings Rock & Roll Broadway and for the 2019 critically-acclaimed production of A Chorus Line. Other credits include Holiday Inn at Drury Lane Oakbrook, Pirates of Penzance and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for Music Theater Works and Forbidden Broadway: SVU at The Royal George Theater. Other credits include Grand Hotel and Nunsensations at Drury Lane Water Tower Place and Gigi, She Loves Me and Me and My Girl at Theater at the Center. Madonia has also been the music director for Chicago’s Equity and non-union Joseph Jefferson Awards numerous times. She owns American Eagle Productions, an educational theatre that has presented 300 shows and workshops a year in Chicago area schools for almost 30 years.
ABOUT PORCHLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE AS A RUTH PAGE IN-RESIDENCE ORGANIZATION
Porchlight Music Theatre is proud to be a member of the vibrant Ruth Page Center for the Arts community and an In-Resident Organization. Central to The Ruth Page Center for the Arts’ programming is this program, which is designed to serve organizations looking for a home base while they grow or expand their artistic and organizational capabilities. The Center is committed to nurturing and assisting dance and other performing artists, allowing for exchange and collaborative relationships to develop within the artistic community. The Ruth Page Center for the Arts is a destination for quality performing arts, accessible to a wide community regardless of race, gender, age, education or disability. An incubator of artistic energy and excellence, The Ruth Page Center for the Arts carries forward the vision of its founder, legendary dance icon Ruth Page, to be a platform for developing great artists and connecting them with audiences and community.
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 its 27th season, Porchlight's 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 the ongoing collaboration with Chicago Youth Centers. Porchlight annually awards 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 its inaugural year in this tier, most notably Best Ensemble for Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies.
Through the global pandemic, Porchlight 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, Chicago Sings Rock & Roll Broadway, New Faces Sing Broadway 1961 and the return of The Ruffians’ Burning Bluebeard as well as collaborations with Hershey Felder and L.A. Theatre Works. Porchlight recently launched its first summer performance schedule in 2021 that included a sold-out performance of New Faces Sing Broadway 1979 at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, the premiere of its outdoor music series Broadway in your Backyard, performed throughout Chicagoland and special appearances at Sundays on State and Navy Pier’s Chicago Live Again.
The 2021 - 2022 New Faces Sing Broadway season is sponsored by Arlen and Elaine Cohen Rubin.
Porchlight Music Theatre is partially supported by generous contributions from Actors’ Equity Foundation; Allstate; Bayless Family Foundation; Michael Best & Friedrich LLP; Chapman | Spingola, Attorneys at Law; Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation; Gen Ops Plus; Elegant Event Lighting; 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; Dr. Scholl Foundation and the Topfer Family 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.