Ned Donovan - Ithaca ‘12

It’s the song that rings in most aspiring musical theatre performers.  ”God I hope I get it! I hope I get it! How many people does he need?”  That number from A Chorus Line accurately sums up the feelings most people have at an audition.  How many times have you heard a cabaret group do the song “One”?  I can say I’ve heard it a lot.  Every Little Step is a documentary following the audition process of the 2005 revival of A Chorus Line on broadway.  They take you from day one, to shots from the performances, complete with callbacks, and rejections; laughs, and tears; and thrilling moments of exultation all the way to moments of bone-crushing defeat.

It also tells the tale of the coming about of A Chorus Line, when Michael Bennett sat 24 dancers down in a circle, and they had a 12 hour talk session where everyone told their stories.  It was captured with a reel to reel recorder (I believe the recordings are in the archives at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts) and from those conversations a show was born.

Hey everyone,

Over the summer my goal is to get audio and video sections onto the site.  I have gotten four recordings up onto the audio section already.  The audio section can be found under the About section. I will add recordings and videos as I get them ready to be put up.  The first four are “Prologue” from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, “I’d Give it All For You” from Songs For a New World (with Genney Myers), “I’m Coming Out of My Shell” from A Year with Frog and Toad, and “Run Away With Me” from The Unauthorized Biography of Samantha Brown.  Please listen to them and enjoy.  Please let me know what you think about them, and also give me tips for getting better recordings up, as well as song ideas.

Thanks,

~Ned Donovan

Hey everyone,

So on April 22, we put on the freshman cabaret here at Ithaca College. Despite a few complications and scheduling issues we got it off the ground and running. We did songs from shows such as: Spring Awakening, All Shook up, The Drowsy Chaperone, as well as standards such as “I’m a Woman” by Lieber and Stoller. All in all I think it went pretty well, there were some minor problems but such things happen in a cabaret.

Thanks to everyone who got involved, and all the people who stuck it out despite scheduling conflicts, and to all of you who couldn’t be a part in this but wanted to, I’m sorry that we couldn’t make it. Thanks to Mitchell Murdock for filming the affair and editing it together. Thanks to Jen Shaw and Lucy Gram for Stage Managing and helping me get everything together. Thanks to the School of Music for the use of Presser Hall. Thanks to Laura Intravia and Omar Najimi for playing for us and being flexible about what songs were in it (many of them got added the day before). Thanks to my lovely girlfriend Nicole who put up with me through random rehearsal times and barely got to see me.

Hey everyone,

I wanted you all to know about a phenomenal thing that came out of a bad thing yesterday.  Yesterday my friend Ben (playing the lead in New Brain) deemed himself too sick to perform, and his understudy was asked to step up.  Andrew Karl (Ithaca College Musical Theatre freshman) is the understudy and he began working mid-afternoon to be prepared for last night.  We got to sit in the audience and watch his performance, and I want everyone to realize just how phenomenal it was.  Cat Stephani (playing Lisa the homeless woman) was also sick, and she performed the show, but asked to not be in the big dance number.  Her understudy Deanalis Resto (Ithaca College Musical Theatre sophomore) stepped up for that number and was also phenomenal.  I would just like to give my congratulations to the two understudies for their performances.

For me this is testament that this program is truly great.  The understudies’ performance could easily have gone without noting they were an understudy, and no one would have cared.  They were professional, poised, and dead on for all their lines and blocking.  Congratulations to them!

~Ned Donovan

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to share with you a review written about our production of “A New Brain” here at Ithaca College.  It’s a great review, and you still have tonight, tomorrow, and two shows on saturday.  www.ithaca.edu/theatre for more information.

Here’s the review.

~Ned Donovan