Sharon McNight in "Songs to Offend Almost Everyone" at Lucille Lortel Theatre

Sharon McNight will present her award-winning cabaret act, "Songs to Offend Almost Everyone," Thursday through Saturday, June 26th, 27th and 28th, at the White Barn Theatre at the LUCILLE LORTEL THEATRE (121 Christopher Street, NYC - www.whitebarntheatre.org), produced by Ms. Lortel's White Barn Theatre by special arrangement with the Lucille Lortel Theatre Foundation. Performances are Thursday at 8:00 pm, Friday at 7:00 and 10:00 pm, and Saturday at 2:00 and 8:00 pm. Single Tickets are $35 for Saturdays at 8:00 pm; all other performances $30. For ticket orders by phone, call Telecharge at 212-239-6200, 800-447-7400 (outside New York State), or on the web at http://www.telecharge.com/.šš

Ms. McNight, a Tony Award nominee (Starmites), will sing a hilarious, rollicking group of songs from her inimitable point of view. Chock full of first amendment rabble-rousers, "Songs to Offend Almost Everyone" is a throwback to party records of the 1950s and is designed to offend people "with good taste" of almost every persuasion.

When the show was well received in its San Francisco and Los Angeles premieres last year, McNight recorded her politically incorrect tunes for Jezebel Music. They include such songs as Randy Newman's "Political Science," "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex" by the late Chet Atkins, Tom Lehrer's "The Old Dope Peddler" and a sexually provocative number from the composer Stephen Sondheim.

The show is also scheduled for performances at THE CABARET at Odette's (South River Road, New Hope, PA - 215-862-3000 - http://www.odettes.com/) and THE BRADSTAN (Route 17B, White Lake, NY - 845-583-4114 - http://bradstancountryhotel.com/).

Sharon McNight made her Broadway debut in 1989 in Starmites, creating the role of Diva. She received a Tony Award nomination as "Best Leading Actress in a Musical" for her performance, and is the recipient of the coveted Theatre World Award for "Outstanding Broadway Debut" which was presented to her by Carol Channing.

She has six solo recordings to her credit, including "The Sophie Tucker Songbook," which contains the music of the one-woman show based the show business legend. "The Sophie Tucker Songbook" debuted at New York's Rainbow & Stars as part of an ASCAP Sunday night showcase in March '96. Since then, she developed it into a one-woman musical, "Red Hot Mama," which was workshopped at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and Lucille Lortel's White Barn Theatre, and has finished a successful three-month run Off-Broadway at the York Theatre.

Her regional credits include Amanda McBroom's "Heartbeats" at the Pasadena Playhouse, and an award-winning Dolly in "Hello, Dolly!" at the Peninsula Civic Light Opera (a role she repeated in her hometown, Modesto). Sharon was Sister Hubert in "Nunsense" in Los Angeles and San Francisco, where she was presented with the Bay Area Critics Circle Award for "Best Performance in a Musical." She is the narrator of the documentary, "There That Night," the story of the Provincetown, Massachusetts fire, and was featured in the recent A & E documentary, "It's Burlesque," for her research on Mae West and Sophie Tucker.

In San Francisco, she plays The Plush Room, Great American Music Hall, and anywhere else the check doesn't bounce. She has played from the Moose Hall to Carnegie Hall, from Los Angeles to Berlin, and this year celebrated her twenty-fifth year in cabaret. She has won six San Francisco Cabaret Gold Awards, a MAC Award, a Bistro Award, and is most noted for her movie reenactment of "The Wizard of Oz" and for being one of the few real women to impersonate Bette Davis.

Ms. McNight received her Masters of Arts degree in direction from San Francisco State College. As an only child, her parents kept her busy with all kinds of lessons: ballet, tap, hula, flute and piano. She is single and resides in Hollywood, but "lives" in San Francisco. She has been in the forefront in the fight against AIDS since the early eighties, and was featured in Randy Shilt's book, And The Band Played On. She says the greatest day of her life was the day she quit smoking.

The White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut, is a summer venue designed to develop new works, founded by Lucille Lortel in 1947.š It is unavailable this summer as renovations are scheduled to bring the building up to code.š The 2003 season has been moved to the off-Broadway Lucille Lortel Theatre.

For further information, see http://www.sharonmcnight.com/.

 

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