BROADWAY, SPRING 2012
New York: Front Row Productions (Stephen Byrd, Alia Jones) is proud to announce that the world-renowned film composer and trumpet player Terence Blanchard will compose the original musical soundscape for the upcoming Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Emily Mann, starring Blair Underwood. Spring of 2012. Theatre TBA. For more information please visit www.streetcaronbroadway.com.
Set against the backdrop of New Orleans’ gritty French Quarter, Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize winning drama, A Streetcar Named Desire tells the tale of former school teacher and socialite Blanche DuBois, as she’s forced to move in with her sister Stella and her animalistic husband Stanley (Blair Underwood). But the fragile, Blanche quickly gets a gritty life lesson in the seamy, steamy underbelly of 1940’s New Orleans.
Streetcar was last seen on Broadway in 2005 starring Natasha Richardson, Amy Ryan and John C, Reilly. Front Row Production’s multi-racial production of A Streetcar Named Desire is a follow-up to their highly successful Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which starred Terrence Howard, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose and James Earl Jones and was directed by Debbie Allen. The production subsequently moved to London’s West End (with Jones and Rashad joined by Sanaa Lathan as Maggie, and Adrian Lester as Brick) where it was honored with the “What’s Onstage†and the prestigious “Olivier†awards for Best Revival.
TERENCE BLANCHARD (Composer) recently completed work on Lucasfilm’s, RED TAILS starring Academy Award winner Cuba Gooding, Jr., Academy Award nominee Terrence Howard and Emmy Award winner Bryan Lee Cranston, as well as his critically acclaimed score for the Broadway play, The Mother****** With The Hat, currently playing in New York starring Chris Rock. In addition to composing the music for the Broadway remake of A Streetcar Named Desire, he has also been commissioned by the Opera St. Louis for a project that will premiere in 2012.
Blanchard just completed a national co-headlining tour with Branford Marsalis and will continue to tour with his quintet throughout 20ll. Additionally, after serving as Artistic Director of the Thelonious
Monk Institute, Blanchard has now been named Artistic Director of the Henry Mancini Institute at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music.
As a film composer, Blanchard has more than 50 scores to his credit and received a Golden Globe nomination for Spike Lee’s 25th Hour. Blanchard’s music was also recently seen in Spike Lee/HBO’s If God’s Willing And The Creek Don’t Rise, commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and the sequel to the critically-acclaimed 2006 film, When The Levees Broke. The film shows the current state of Blanchard’s native New Orleans five years after Hurricane Katrina, and follows the lives of several individuals and their families in the aftermath of one of the worst disasters to occur in U.S. history. Blanchard won a Grammy for his 2007 CD “A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina),†which included tracks from Levees.
In 2009, Blanchard loaned his musical voice to Louis the Alligator in The Princess and the Frog. He has completed scores for Lee’s Miracle at St. Anna, the soundtrack for Darnell Martin’s Cadillac Records and Guy Moshe’s adventure thriller Bunraku (Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson and Josh Hartnett). Other film music written by Blanchard includes Kasi Lemmons’ Eve’s Bayou and Talk to Me, Oprah Winfrey’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tim Story’s Barbershop and Ron Shelton’s Dark Blue and music for over one dozen Spike Lee films and documentaries.
Terence Blanchard has established himself as one of the most influential jazz musicians and film score masters of his generation, a member of a jazz legacy that has shaped the contours of modern jazz today. With more than 29 CD’s to his credit, Blanchard is a four-time Grammy Award winner and has received multiple Grammy nominations as well as a Golden Globe nod. His latest CD, “Choices,†was released by Concord Jazz in 2009 to widespread critical acclaim. Recorded in New Orleans at the Ogden Museum Of Art — itself a survivor of Hurricane Katrina — “Choices†addresses the choices we all make in life – both as a society and on a personal level. Guest artists on “Choices†include writer, speaker, educator and activist Dr. Cornel West and singer, musician and composer Bilal. West performs spoken word pieces on the album with Bilal providing vocals on several of the tracks. www.TerenceBlanchard.com
