BROOKLYN’S LOUIS AND CAPATHIA AT JOE’S PUB TO CELEBRATE CD RELEASE

Fame Becomes Me Star Capathia Jenkins and Award-winning composer Louis Rosen celebrate the launch of their new CD, South Side Stories at Joe’s Pub on October 29, November 5, and November 12.

Tickets for CAPATHIA JENKINS AND LOUIS ROSEN: SOUTH SIDE STORIES,
are priced at $20 with a two-drink minimum, may be reserved by calling
(212) 239-6200. For more information, please visit www.joespub.com.

We knew her when. Just last winter, Capathia and Louis delivered a knock-out performance at the Old Stone House. Now’s she’s a show-stopping Broadway star in "Fame Becomes Me" with Martin Short.

Even more importantly, she and Louis are performing Southside Stories at Joe’s Pub (they did excerpts from this song cycle at the Old Stone House). Better get tickets. It’s going to be a GREAT SHOW (I know because I know a bunch of the songs and they are fabulous). Here’s the press release:

Broadway great Capathia Jenkins, who received rave reviews for her show-stopping performance in the new Broadway hit Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, and award-winning composer/performer Louis Rosen celebrate the launch of their debut CD, CAPATHIA JENKINS AND LOUIS ROSEN: SOUTH SIDE STORIES, with three Sunday evening concerts at Joe’s Pub (425 Lafayette Street), October 29, November 5, and November 12 at 7 p.m. Inspired by Rosen’s experiences growing up on the south side of Chicago, SOUTH SIDE STORIES is a moving collection of songs about youth, coming-of-age, and experience.

The concerts, which mark the popular duo’s highly-anticipated return to Joe’s Pub, will also include selections from their acclaimed show Twelve Songs on Poems by Maya Angelou, which debuted at Joe’s Pub last year in two sold-out concerts; and a preview of Rosen’s newest work for Jenkins, Giovanni Songs, featuring words by poet Nikki Giovanni. Pianist David Loud, bassist Dave Phillips, and Mike Freeman, vibraphone and percussion, will join Jenkins and Rosen for their Joe’s Pub engagement.

CAPATHIA JENKINS AND LOUIS ROSEN: SOUTH SIDE STORIES received critical acclaim during its world premiere at the Steppenwolf Theater in December 2005. Hedy Weiss of The Chicago Sun-Times declared it "magical…(a) nostalgic, romantic, emotionally charged song cycle." Kerry Reid of the Chicago Tribune called the performance "a fine and sometimes somber portrait of heartbreak and survival, joy and its absence, and love that endures even when the objects of that love are long vanished."

SOUTH SIDE STORIES marks Jenkins and Rosen’s third project together, and it also marks their recording debut. They launched their collaboration in March 2005 with sold-out engagements of Twelve Songs on Poems by Maya Angelou at Joe’s Pub. The success of their debut led to engagements at celebrated venues in New York and throughout the country, including Birdland and the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, The Old Stone House in Brooklyn, the legendary Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, and the Great Hall of Cooper Union.

Capathia Jenkins is currently wowing audiences in the new Broadway hit Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, and has also starred in Broadway productions of Caroline, Or Change, The Civil War, and Bacharach and David’s The Look of Love. She has appeared in numerous Off-Broadway productions, including the recent revival of Godspell. Her national and European tours include Dreamgirls, Bubblin’ Brown Sugar, Sophisticated Rhythms, and Uptown Saturday Night, and her television credits include The Practice, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, and The Sopranos.

Louis Rosen’s songs and theater music have been performed in concert halls, cabarets, and theaters in New York and around the country. His scores include the music theater pieces Book of the Night, A Child’s Garden, and the forthcoming adaptation of Steinbeck’s The Pearl; the song cycle Dream Suite, words by Langston Hughes (also composed for Ms. Jenkins), and many others. The author of The South Side: The Racial Transformaiton of an American Neighborhood, Rosen was recently awarded a 2005-2006 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Music Composition.