Bill Russell, Tony Award nominated author of the book and lyrics for Side Show, will present My Side of the Show on Friday, Nov. 11 th at 7:00 p.m. In it, he will tell the story of writing the musical from the idea through the original Broadway production in 1997, which received Tony nominations for Best Musical, Best Score, Best Book and an historic joint nomination for Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner for Best Actress in a Musical. Mr. Russell will continue with more stories about re-writing the show for the Broadway revival in 2014, directed by Oscar winning screenwriter and director, Bill Condon. Local talent will perform songs from both versions with Bill talking about the process of writing those songs. Side Show has received two productions at Genesius Theatre and some of those performers will be joining Mr. Russell.
The performance will take place at the Boscov Theatre at GoggleWorks on Friday Nov 11 at 7PM.
ALL TICKET SALES will go through Goggleworks | Tickets are $25.00 each
About Bill Russell
BILL RUSSELL is an internationally produced author and director of musicals for the stage. He received Tony Award nominations for the book and lyrics of Side Show, which was also nominated for Best Musical, and its leading ladies, Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner received a unique joint nomination for Best Actress in a Musical. An acclaimed revival, directed by Oscar winning screenwriter and director, Bill Condon, was on Broadway in 2014. Mr. Russell has directed several productions of that show around the country.
He penned book and lyrics for Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens and has directed it frequently in America as well as the Fringe and West End of London. At the end of 2020, he co-directed a streamed version as a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids with a cast of 51 stars of stage, film, and TV, including Nathan Lane, Cynthia Nixon, Fran Drescher, Norm Lewis, Cherry Jones, JK Simmons, Joaquina Kalukango, Anthony Rapp, and Seth Rudetsky, to name a few. Pageant (co-author, book & lyrics) ran for a year off-Broadway, was revived there in 2014, and Mr. Russell directed productions in Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston, and in the Fringe, and West End of London.
Other off-Broadway book and lyric credits include Unexpected Joy (also London), Lucky Duck, The Last Smoker in America, Fourtune, and The Texas Chainsaw Musical. He is currently writing lyrics for an adaption of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and will direct Jeff Mandels’ play Leaving Brooklyn in New York City next spring. He received Honorary Doctorates from the Boston Conservatory and Morningside College and was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in2016.
Much more at www.billrussell.net