FOLLIES GUEST STARS
Acclaimed dancer, singer, and actress Rita Moreno was born Rosa Dolores Alverio in Puerto Rico to a family of independent farmers. She moved to New York City with her mother at age five and went on to become one of the few people to win an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy, and a Grammy throughout her long career. At age 13, she took her vibrant stage presence and star quality to Broadway, and by the next year she had made it to Hollywood, where MGM studio executives suggested she change her name to Rita.
Mostly appearing in musicals, her most notable roles of the '50s include Zelda Zanders the Zip Girl in Singin' in the Rain and Tuptim in The King and I. During this close-minded time period in American cinema, she was showcased for her "exotic" qualities in films like Pagan Love Song, Latin Lovers, and The Fabulous Senorita. She also starred in the costume drama The Vagabond King as well as various adventures and Westerns, usually providing the musical entertainment. Her big breakthrough came in 1961 with her role as the spitfire Anita in West Side Story, winning her an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. During the '60s, she took her talents back to the stage and got married, but she did appear in the films Carnal Knowledge with Jack Nicholson and Popi with Alan Arkin.
As a mother during the '70s, she turned to television and got involved with the PBS children's series The Electric Company, which led to a Grammy award for her recording contribution to the soundtrack album. She also won Emmy awards for her work on The Rockford Files and The Muppet Show. Meanwhile, she reprised her Tony-winning Broadway role of entertainer Googie Gomez for the 1976 film version of The Ritz. In the '80s, she appeared in the TV sitcom 9 to 5, the detective series B.L. Stryker, and several made-for-TV movies.
In the '90s, she provided the voice for the title character in the PBS educational program Where on Earth Is Carmen Santiago? She started making features again, taking supporting roles in independent comedy dramas, including Slums of Beverly Hills. In 1997, she turned to confrontational drama as Sister Peter Marie Reimondo on the HBO prison drama Oz.
In 2007, Moreno appeared in a cameo role on the hit series Ugly Betty, playing the title character's aunt. Later that same year, she joined the cast of the drama series Cane, a show about a Latin family and their trials and tribulations running a family owned business.
Val Diamond has had a long and varied theatrical career. She's in her 30th year at Beach Blanket Babylon. She was a featured performer on the Academy Awards presentation and the PBS special Sing Out America with Bobby McFerrin and Judy Collins. She received two Critics Awards and four Cabaret Gold Awards, Outstanding Female Vocalist and Entertainer of the year, for her concerts at the Great American Music Hall and the Venetian Room. Val's movie roles include Nine Months with Hugh Grant and Metro with Eddie Murphy and two upcoming films, Valley of the Heart's Delight and The Darwin Awards. Her TV work includes roles on Nash Bridges and many national and regional voiceover and on-screen commercials. She was a guest on The Merv Griffin Show four times and was seen on several music videos, among her favorites Tom Waits' Blow Wind Blow.
Sharon McNight began her career in San Francisco as a theatre art major. What followed was the beginning of the San Francisco cabaret scene where she won every major award for "Entertainer of the Year". She toured Europe for five years and returned to the stage in the San Francisco and Los Angeles productions of Nunsense. Yes, hard to believe Sharon as a nun. Then, 1989 Broadway debut in Starmites, Tony Award nomination, recipient of the Theatre World Award for "Outstanding Broadway debut", Hirschfeld drawing in the New York Times, wrote her own one woman show about Sophie Tucker called Red Hot Mama, which was work-shopped at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and Lucille Lortell's White Barn Theatre, and finished a successful three month run Off-Broadway at the York Theatre.
She has played from the Moose Hall to Carnegie Hall, from Los Angeles to Berlin. She has won six San Francisco Cabaret Gold awards, a MAC award, a Bistro award, and a New York Critic's Nightlife award for Best Musical Comedy for her show Ladies, Compose Yourselves! (featuring songs by living ladies, women and a couple of broads). She has five solo CDs and hopes to take her current project, Songs To Offend Almost Everyone, to Off-Broadway. Sharon 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.
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 is on the faculty of the Cabaret Symposium at Yale University. The greatest day of her life was when she quit smoking. To purchase her CDS or get on the mailing list go to www.sharonmcnight.com.
Sheri Greenawald, San Francisco Opera Center Director, has had a distinguished international operatic singing career as a soprano, noted in particular for her enormous range of roles. She has sung featured roles with (among others) San Francisco Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Venice's La Fenice, the Munich State Opera, Paris's Châtelet Theater, Welsh National Opera, Seattle Opera Company, Houston Grand Opera, the Netherlands Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Naples's Teatro San Carlos and Opera Theatre of St. Louis. She has worked with most of opera's great conductors and directors, and she is featured on several recordings, including singing the title role of Blitztein's Regina conducted by John Mauceri and recorded on Decca. A graduate of the University of Northern Iowa, Greenawald completed the Professional Studies Program at the Juilliard School of Music and has received a Rockefeller Grant, NEA Grant, and was Seattle Opera Association's Artist of the Year in 1998. She has taught privately, was a visiting artist at the University of Charleston, an Artist in Residence at the University of Northern Iowa, was the vocal coach of the Santa Fe Apprentice Program in 1999 and opera director of the program in 2000, and has given master classes the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. She recently was engaged as a professor of voice and opera at the Boston Conservatory, with a full vocal studio, coursework on English and American Song Repertory, and directed for the Opera Studio.
Melody Moore, a recent Adler Fellow and former Merola Opera Program participant, graduated from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where she performed the role of Candace Whitcomb in Stephen Paulus's The Village Singer and received the Norman Treigle and Andrew White Awards. She sang Countess Almaviva in April of 2006 when she covered the role at Los Angeles Opera, performing the final dress rehearsal. The following June, she had the opportunity to sing the role again with San Francisco Opera. Other performances have included Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni at Lincoln Theatre in Napa Valley as well as the title role in Suor Angelica for the Opera Theatre and Musical Festival of Lucca, Italy. She recently sang the role of Governess in Britten's Turn of the Screw in Napa Valley and performed another Britten work, Les Illuminations, with the New Century Chamber Orchestra in Berkeley, San Jose and San Francisco. In the fall of 2007, she covered the role of Magda in Puccini's La Rondine for San Francisco Opera. Ms. Moore just finished four performances of Der Zwerg and Der zerbrochene Krug with Los Angeles Opera as part of their Recovered Voices series. She looks forward to performances of Mimi with English National Opera and Opera Cleveland, Manon Lescaut with New Orleans Opera and Suor Angelica with Orlando Opera.
Tenor Trente Morant is in demand as a conductor, arranger, accompanist and performer. Recently, he conducted in both the Monterey and San Francisco Jazz Festivals, sang the role of the Swan in Carmina Burana with the Oakland Ballet, and performed the role of Sportin' Life in a concert version of Porgy and Bess with Michael Morgan and OEBS. In 2004, Trente performed with the Alameda Civic Light Opera Company as the Leading Player in Pippin. For the last two summers Morant served as vocal director for productions of Ragtime, Oklahoma, Hello Dolly, Beauty and the Beast and King and I at the Woodminster Theater. For 19 years, Trente worked with the Oakland Youth Chorus. During those first years he was a three-time recipient of an Artist in Residence grant from the California Arts Council. Morant also conducted the chorus in performances and workshops with Bobby McFerrin, Charlie Haden, Nancy Wilson, Ed Kelly, Keith Terry, Linda Tillery, Jon Hendricks, Pete Seeger, and Voicestra.
