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Kicking off
Dallas
Summer Musicals' (DSM) 71" season March 15-20,
2011,
will be
TOMMY TUNE- STEPS IN
TIME,
A BROADWAY BIOGRAPHY IN SONG AND DANCE,
FEATURING THE MANHATTAN RHYTHM KINGS.
Single
tickets, priced from $15-$75, are on
sale now at The Box Office, 542 Preston Royal
Shopping Center, or any
Ticketmaster outlet.
Tickets are
also available by calling 1-800-982-ARTS, or
online at
www.ticketmaster.com. For groups
of 15 or more, call
214-426-GROUP.
Broadway's Super Star Song and Dance man, Tommy Tune hits the
stage high-stepping through his nine-time Tony®
Award winning career. Known as one of the most prolific
theatre men of the Twentieth Century, Tommy Tune
has
enchanted audiences over the past 50 years with his charisma,
vision, and innovation. A native Texan, Tune
received his
Equity card onstage at the Music Hall at Fair Park, and began
his career as a dancer in the Broadway shows
Baker
Street,
A
Joyful Noise,
and How
Now Dow Jones.
He would soon step out of the chorus and into a principal role in the
Broadway
musical Seesaw,
which garnered him his first Tony Award
for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Less than
a decade later, he won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his
performance in
My One and
Only.
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Tunes talents were not limited to his
onstage performances. Throughout his career, he
would go on to win an additional
seven
Tony Awards,
four for Best
Choreography (A Day in Hollywood/A Night
in the Ukraine, Grand Hotel, My One and Only,
The Will Rogers Follies)
and three for
Best Direction of a Musical (Nine, Grand
Hotel, The Will Rogers Follies),
bringing his total to an unprecedented
nine Tony Awards.
In addition,
his talents have been recognized by receiving
eight
Drama Desk Awards,
three
Astaire Awards,
and the
Society of Directors and Choreographers George
Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement.
He is also the recipient of
the
National Medal
of Arts,
the country's
highest honor for artistic achievement.
The versatile Tune's talents extend beyond the stage. His
film credits include,
Hello Dolly,
The Boyfriend, Mimi Bluette,
Fiore Del Mio
Giardina,
and Hollywood Blvd.
He has been honored
with a star on the legendary
Hollywood
Walk of
Fame. Throughout his
career he has toured extensively in productions
of Irma La Douce; Seesaw; Tommy Tune Tonight; My One and Only; Bye,
Bye, Birdie;
and his act with The
Manhattan
Rhythm Kings.
In his spare
time, Tune enjoys painting in his
Manhattan
tower studio. Some of his work can be seen
online at
www.TommvTuneGallerv.com.
Most recently, Tune directed the new
musical,
Turn
of
the Century, at the esteemed
Goodman Theatre
in
Chicago. The show, slated
for Broadway, was written by Marshall Brickman
and Rick Elice of
Jersey Boys
fame.
Manhattan Rhythm Kings:
Known for their polished
performances of American popular music from the
'20s, '30s and
'40s, the Manhattan Rhythm Kings have gained a
large and enthusiastic following across the
country. While frequently
compared with such musical
greats as the Mills Brothers and Paul Whiteman's
Rhythm Boys, the trio has established a
unique character of its own with a combination of
close harmony singing, virtuosic instrumental
work, and spectacular tap dancing.
The Rhythm
Kings started performing together on the
sidewalks of New York in 1980. From there, these song and
dance
men
graduated to playing some of the Big Apple's top
nightspots. It was their sparkling combination
of song and dance that first attracted
the attention of Broadway's Tommy Tune. In 1984
Mr. Tune asked the trio to help him assemble an
act based on songs written by Fred Astaire. Their collaboration
continues today and the act has performed
together in
venues as
diverse as Carnegie Hall and Atlantic City's Trump
Plaza, and a tour of the former Soviet
Union, where they
commanded
standing ovations in Moscow,
Tiblisi, and St. Petersburg.
The Kings are
favorites at symphony pops concerts and have
performed with over 80 orchestras, including the
Boston Pops,
the National Symphony, and the orchestras of
Baltimore, Detroit,
St. Louis, Cincinnati,
Seattle, Indianapolis,
Dallas
and
Pittsburgh,
among others. The Rhythm Kings have made
numerous appearances on television, most notably
Evening
at Pops with
John Williams, Tommy Tune and the Boston Pops,
as well as the Emmy-award winning Celebrating
Gershwin with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.
In addition, they've starred in their own
special for Nebraska Public
Television,
and were featured with Andrew Litton and the
Dallas Symphony on their PBS special. Other TV
credits
include The
1992 Tony Awards, the TODAY show, CBS, This
Morning, The 1992 Kennedy Center Honors Awards,
Entertainment Tonight, As the World Turns, as
well as several appearances on the The Charles
Grodin Show. The
Manhattan Rhythm Kings have shared the stage with Bob Hope, George
Burns, Leonard Bernstein, Judy Collins, Bette
Midler
and Gregory Hines. They also appeared at Radio City Music Hall with the Rockettes as part of
Peter Allen's Easter Spectacular
In 1992 the Rhythm
Kings were back on Broadway, this time indoors,
at the Shubert Theatre. They were featured as
Moose, Sam and Mingo, a trio of crooning bumpkins in the "new" Gershwin
musical Crazy for You, winner of three Tony
Awards, including Best Musical and Best
Choreography. The Manhattan Rhythm Kings are
proud to have performed with
Tommy Tune
in their latest song and dance review, "White
Tie and Tails," inaugurating New York City's
newest theater,
the "Little Shubert," on 42nd St. To quote John Simon of New York
Magazine, "90 minutes you fervently wish would
never end!"
The group also recently recorded with Vince Giordano's
Nighthawks on the soundtrack of the Martin
Scorsese film "The
Aviator", starring Leonardo
DiCaprio. Their latest CD is a tribute to Bing
Crosby and the Rhythm Boys. In addition to their
busy schedule, the "Kings" have tour dates with Tommy
Tune. Check out their full itinerary as well as
inform
how to order one of their
five CDs at their Myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/manhattanrhythmkings.
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