Tuesday, December 22, 2015

2004 Donna Reed Scholarship Alumnus opens in Broadway revival of “Fiddler On The Roof”

Ben Rappaport as Perchik

Ben Rappaport to appear as Perchik

The much-loved and much-revived 1964 musical comedy “Fiddler On The Roof” opened at The Broadway Theater on December 17. Ben Rappaport ("Mr. Robot," "The Good Wife," "Outsourced") portrays the young student radical Perchik, the man Hodel comes to cherish and follows into exile. 

It has been said the revival, with its story of the gradual disintegration of a family and a community, strikes home with unusual force in light of events taking place in the world today. 

The original Broadway production of the show, which opened in 1964, had the first musical theatre run in history to surpass 3,000 performances. The show won the 1965 Tony Award for Best Musical in addition to eight other Tony Awards that year.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Donna Reed Scholarship alumna returns to Broadway

Saycon Sengbloh
College Park, GA native has starring role in Eclipsed
Saycon Sengbloh, a 1996 Donna Reed Foundation national scholarship winner in acting, is currently starring in Eclipsed. After rave reviews and a sold-out preview run at The Public Theater in New York, the production opens on Broadway at John Golden Theatre starting in February.

Eclipsed is the brutal story of the atrocities the Liberian civil war inflicted on its women. Amid the chaos of the Liberian Civil War, the captive wives of a rebel officer band together to form a fragile community – until the balance of their lives is upset by the arrival of a new girl. Sengbloh plays Helena a.k.a. "Wife Number One" of the commanding officer who abducted the women now confined to his compound. She is the den mother-like force of nature within an ensemble that includes three other "wives" (one, a runaway rebel with a penchant for machine guns and knock-off designer duds) and a female peace warrior. 

For the past decade, Sengbloh has starred in a string of glitzy Broadway musicals, including Holler If Ya Hear Me, Motown The Musical, Hair, Fela, The Color Purple, Wicked and AIDA.