Every day is opening night.

Kusc 91.5 Fm to Premiere “Wilkommen, Bienvenue: an 80th Birthday Tribute to Joel Grey” Saturday at 6

Contact: Rick Miramontez / Molly Barnett / Andy Snyder
rick@oandmco.com / molly@oandmco.com / andy@oandmco.com
212-695-7400

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE

LOS ANGELES’S PREMIERE CLASSICAL MUSIC STATION TO HONOR
J O E L    G R E Y 
WITH 90 MINUTE “MUSICAL MEMOIR”

 

“WILKOMMEN, BIENVENUE: AN 80TH BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE TO JOEL GREY”
TO AIR ON KUSC 91.5 FM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15 AT 6 PM PDT

Los Angeles, CA (9/14/2012) – KUSC 91.5 FM,  one of the largest and most listened-to public classical music stations in the country, will honor Academy® and Tony® Award-winning actor Joel Grey on Saturday evening, September 15, 2012 with a 90-minute tribute broadcast.  The program is the final installment of this year’s monthly musical theater series, “The Shows of Shows” presented by KUSC and the Festival of New American Musicals. The program, entitled “Wilkommen, Bienvenue: An 80th Birthday Tribute to Joel Grey,” traces Grey’s life in the musical theater, from Mickey Katz’s remarkably gifted young offspring,  to the unforgettable Emcee in Cabaret, to Moonface Martin in Anything Goes.  The program will feature extensive, never-before heard commentary by Grey himself, from an interview recorded in New York just a few weeks ago.  The program host is hosted by KUSC's Alan Chapman and airs at 6:00 p.m. PST on KUSC 91.5FM.  It will also stream live on www.kusc.org.

The 90-minute “musical memoir” will feature Grey in conversation about his esteemed theater career, and include over 20 tracks from the musicals he's starred in over the last 50 plus years. “Wilkommen, Bienvenue” will follow Grey from his first Off Broadway musical in 1956, The Littlest Revue, through his recent turn in the Tony Award-winning revival of Anything Goes, and everywhere in between. It features many rare, out-of-print recordings from the performer’s own collection.

For more information or to listen live on September 15th, visit www.kusc.org

JOEL GREY         ______________________________________________________________________________________________________

In a career that was launched in the early 1950’s, Joel Grey has created indelible stage roles each decade since. Grey made his theatrical debut at the age of 9 in the Cleveland Playhouse production of On Borrowed Time and made his Broadway debut exactly two decades later as a replacement in Neil Simon’s first comedy hit, Come Blow Your Horn (1961).  Since then, his Broadway credits include the Stop the World I Want to Get Off, Half a Sixpence, Cabaret (Tony Award), George M! (Tony nomination), Goodtime Charley (Tony nomination), The Grand Tour (Tony nomination), Chicago (Drama Desk Award) and Wicked.  Joel’s dramatic stage roles include Marco Polo Sings a Solo, Chekhov’s Platonov, the Roundabout Theatre production of Give Me Your Answer, Do! (Drama Desk nomination) and Larry Kramer’s seminal The Normal Heart at the Public Theatre, which he recently co-directed with George C. Wolfe in its Broadway premiere (Drama Desk Award, Tony nomination).  Most recently, he starred in Roundabout Theatre Company’s Tony Award-winning revival of Anything Goes.

Joel received the Academy Award, the Golden Globe and the British Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the 1972 film version of Cabaret (directed by Bob Fosse).  He is one of only nine actors to have won both the Tony and Academy Award for the same role.  Other film credits include Man on A Swing, Robert Altman’s Buffalo Bill and the Indians, The Seven Percent Solution, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, Steven Soderbergh’s Kafka, Altman’s The Player, The Music of Chance, Michael Ritchie’s adaptation of The Fantasticks, Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark and Clark Gregg’s Choke.  Recent television appearances include “Brooklyn Bridge” (Emmy nomination), “OZ,” “Law and Order: CI,” “House,” “Brothers & Sisters,” “Private Practice,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Nurse Jackie.”  He was recently honored for his illustrious television career by The Paley Center for Media in both NYC and Los Angeles. 

Joel is also an accomplished photographer.  He has three books of photographs, Pictures I Had to Take (2003), Looking Hard at Unexamined Things (2006) and 1.3 – Images From My Phone (2009).  His life and career were recently the subject of an exhibition at The Museum of the City of New York, titled Joel Grey/A New York Life.  Joel is the father of Jennifer and James and the grandfather of Stella.

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