NiCori Studios and Productions proudly announces the first annual Winter Gala which will be held on Friday, December 16, 2016 at 7pm at Westminster Arts Center at Bloomfield College with a VIP After- Party at Oakeside Bloomfield Cultural Center. The Gala is presented by NiCori Studios and Productions and will feature top-notch Broadway and television performers. The goal of the Gala is to help insure that no NiCori youth student is ever turned away due to financial hardship.
Performers scheduled to appear are two-time Tony Award nominee Beth Fowler, Broadway actor/cabaret singer-songwriter and recording artist DC Anderson, Broadway actress/cabaret performer Kelli Rabke, multi-award nominee Corinna Sowers Adler, MAC Award-winning singer Stearns Matthews and Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Ilene Angel. The Winter Gala will be hosted by Gerry Mastrolia. Tickets are $40 for the performance and $65 for the performance and VIP After-Party ($5 more at the door). Performers are subject to change.
Beth Fowler has appeared on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Peter Pan, Baby, Take Me Along, Teddy & Alice, the 1989 revival of Sweeney Todd, where she portrayed Mrs. Lovett, Beauty and the Beast, in which she originated the role of Mrs. Potts, Bells Are Ringing, and The Boy from Oz where she portrayed Peter Allen’s mother ,Marion. She has been nominated for two Tony Awards — Best Featured Actress and Best Actress in a Musical. Ms. Fowler has appeared in a number of films, including Sister Act and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit as Choir Nun, Friends & Family, Did You Hear About the Morgans?, I Don’t Know How She Does It, and Mulan, in which she sang “Honor to Us All.” On television, Fowler guest starred on Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Ed, and Gossip Girl. In 2013, she began appearing in the recurring role as Sister Jane Ingalls in the Netflix comedy-drama series, ORANGE Is the New BLACK.
D.C. Anderson, as an actor, has appeared on Broadway in The Phantom of the Opera, on National Tour in Pippin, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, The Phantom of the Opera and Martin Guerre, Off Broadway in Queen of the Mist (also cast recording) and Storyville and regionally with the Guthrie, Northlight, Florida Studio Theater, Workshop, Rep Theater of St Louis and Steppenwolf theater companies. He is an award-winning singer/songwriter as well with 9 CDs of original and cover songs at iTunes etc. His next CD will be released in March of 2017.
Kelli Rabke’s breakout role was playing Dorothy in Paper Mill’s highly acclaimed The Wizard of Oz. She later returned to Paper Mill for another career milestone—playing Yonah in Children of Eden. Ms. Rabke is probably best known for her Broadway debut as the Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. She also was seen on Broadway as Eponine in Les Misérables. On television, she played the recurring role of Bernadette on The Young and the Restless. Ms. Rabke made her cabaret debut with No Place Like Home. Following multiple sold-out runs, she’s now headlining concerts and cabarets around the world.
Bloomfield resident and Founding Artistic Director of NiCori Studios and Productions, Corinna Sowers Adler was honored be a 2015 and 2016 nominee for the first-ever Tony Award for Excellence in Theater Education. Ms. Sowers Adler made her Jazz at Lincoln Center debut on the Rose Theater stage as a featured singer at the 24th Annual Cabaret Convention and appeared again in the 25th and 27th Annual Cabaret Convention presented by The Mabel Mercer Foundation. Before moving to the New York City area in 2009, she served for ten years as the director of theater for the Wilkes University Conservatory, where she grew a program from its inception to a roster of nearly 1,000 students. For four years she also held the position of artistic director of children’s theater at the Historic Pocono and Bucks County Playhouses, directing and casting more than 40 shows each season. She recently debuted a new solo show in The Appel Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center entitled Something Beautiful which garnered her a rave reviews from The Huffington Post.
Stearns Matthews is a double 2015 MAC Award winner for Best Male Vocalist and Best Recording for his debut album, Spark. The CD also won the 2015 Bistro Award for Outstanding Recording. He holds a Bachelor of Music in Music Theater from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. He has appeared multiple times in the Mabel Mercer Foundation’s annual Cabaret Convention in New York City. Mr. Matthews also serves on the Board of Directors of the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs (MAC).
Ilene Angel is an award-winning singer/songwriter and author. Her song “I Don’t Think About It” was number one on Radio Disney, and her new CD of uplifting songs, titled In Color, includes the duet “Friends Like Me & You” with the legendary Kenny Loggins. She studied music at Northwestern University and The Juilliard School and was the recipient of the Abe Olman Award from the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. Ms. Angel’s songs are currently being featured on Women of Substance Radio and Podcast, and she is also a contributing writer at The Huffington Post.
NiCori Studios and Productions is a pre-professional theater training center based in Bloomfield, NJ that is dedicated to educating both amateur and seasoned performing artists alike. Offerings include voice lessons, musical theatre classes, acting workshops, songwriting workshops, dance classes, and technical theatre workshops — which are all part of the curriculum that makes NiCori the place to create grow as an artist, a performer, and a person.
To join the Winter Gala celebration, please visit www.nicoristudios.com. Tickets are $40 for the Performance and $65 for the Performance and VIP After Party.
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