The Blue Flower

Jim Bauer is an American composer, librettist, songwriter and performing musician. A classically-trained pianist and self-taught guitarist and singer who turned to rock music in his teens, he studied classical music composition and theory at Haverford College with composers and mentors Harold Boatrite and John Davison, and has since found the blend of "serious" and "popular" music he has been looking for in music tied to narrative: music for stage, film and television. He has written, arranged, orchestrated, produced, and performed music for all of the above while winning some awards and earning a few distinctions along the way. His award-winning musical play The Blue Flower was produced at the A.R.T. in the fall of 2010 and Off-Broadway at Second Stage Theater in New York City in the fall of 2011 (enhancing producer in both cases, Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin). In early 2012 he began a collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz (Anna in the Tropics) on a new one-person one-act musical titled Farhad or The Secret of Being that was presented by producer Paulette Haupt at Urban Stages in New York City in the fall of 2012. In honor of the sesquicentennial anniversary of the American Civil War, he is currently developing with his wife -- visual artist Ruth Bauer -- a new musical that looks back on those 19th century events from a 21st century perspective.  Ruth and Jim are writing the script, Jim the music and lyrics. The project is being d eveloped under the auspices of Harvard University's American Repertory Theater. He is also working on EXO, an experimental project which will turn his six year old Dagmar song-cycle into a staged performance-art concert, Jim has been an Artist-in-Residence at HERE Arts Center in New York, and is a recipient of the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Grant.

Ruth Bauer is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. Her oil paintings, watercolors, collages and monotypes have been shown in group exhibits in museums including The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Hudson River Museum, The Tucson Museum of Art, The DeCordova Museum, The Brockton Museum, and the Rose Art Museum, and in solo exhibitions in galleries across the United States.  Her work is included in notable private and public collections, and has been reviewed in a number of articles in art journals and newspapers, including ArtNews and The Boston Globe. As an illustrator she has created book jacket covers for Houghton-Mifflin, Viking, Harvard University Press and Orchard Books. She is a faculty member and Chair of the Arts Department at Shore Country Day School in Beverly, MA and is a 2004 recipient of a Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Award.   She is currently writing and illustrating a fictional journal of an amateur woman naturalist from the nineteenth century who has traveled to the mythical isle of Kokovoko (the home of the charismatic cannibal Queequeg in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick) and is documenting the flora and fauna there.

Will Pomerantz has directed and developed new plays, music theatre and opera with such theatres as Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theatre, Hartford Stage, New York Theater Workshop, Ensemble Studio Theater, Soho Rep, Culture Project, The Signature Theatre, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Studio Theatre, Bard Summerscape, and The Guthrie.  He has directed world premieres by John Guare, David Auburn, Neil LaBute, Craig Lucas, Kia Corthron, David Lindsay-Abaire, Stephen Belber, Noah Haidle, and Linda Cho.  His production of The Shape of Things was voted Outstanding Production of the Year in Washington, DC by Metro Weekly and received a Helen Hayes Award for outstanding performance, as well as being cited as among the year’s best by The Washington Post and The Washington Times.  His production Dai (starring Iris Bahr) received a Drama Desk nomination for Best Solo Performance 2006-2007 and won the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Solo Performance.  He received an OOBR Award for Outstanding Production (for A Tale of Two Cities) and his work has been a Critic’s Pick in Time Out NY and The Village Voice. Pomerantz is Associate Director for Artistic Development for Epic Theatre Ensemble, where he directed the New York premiere of Howard Barker’s A Hard Heart (starring Kathleen Chalfant), and Mahida’s Extra Key to Heaven.  Pomerantz is the first American director ever invited to direct for the National Theatre of Poland, where his production of Cinders, by Janusz Glowacki, was performed as part of the repertory for four years. In addition, he has been the Boris Sagal Fellow in Directing for Williamstown Theatre Festival, Staff Repertory Director for The Acting Company, Director-In-Residence for Culture Project, and is an alumnus of the Directors Lab at Lincoln Center, a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop, and a member of Ensemble Studio Theater.

A.R.T.: Moby-Dick, The Tempest, The Blue Flower, bobrauschenbergamerica. Broadway: Indecent, The Visit, Enron, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, Aida, Girl From The North Country (upcoming). International: Laurie Anderson’s Songs and Stories from Moby Dick; Richard Foreman’s Pearls for Pigs; Tadashi Suzuki’s Dionysus; The Merchant of Venice, RSC, TFANA. Thirty years of Off-Broadway and Regional productions. Founding member, SITI Company. Honors: Eliot Norton Award (Prospero, The Tempest), OBIE Award (Marshal McLuhan, The Medium). Education/​Training: MFA, UC San Diego.

Previously with Will Pomerantz: wAve, Ma-Yi Theater, NYC. Recent New York theater: Lascivious Something, Women’s Project/Cherry Lane; Habit, Watermill Center; the Obie Award-winning Telephone, Foundry Theater. International: Bleak House, Bauhaus Festival, Theaterhaus Jena; Kafeneion, Athens/Epidaurus Festival; Knock-Out (Thalia Theater, Hamburg, Theaterhaus Jena. Opera: Upcoming Ariadne auf Naxos, Opera National de Bordeaux; Phaeton, Saarlindishes Staatstheater; Proserpina (sets/costumes), Spoleto Festival USA; Don Pasquale, Nationaltheater Weimar; Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, Theater Basel; Imeneo, Glimmerglass Opera; La Finta Giardinera, Rita, Pauvre Matelot, San Francisco Opera; Elektra, Bluebeard’s Castle, Long Beach Opera; Carmen, Nationaltheater Mannheim; In Mahler’s Shadow, Eos Orchestra. Exhibits: Pavlov’s Lab and other rooms, Solo at Gallery Magnus Muller, Berlin; Design Life Now National Design Triennial, Cooper Hewitt Museum, ICA Boston, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston. Grants: NEA/TCG Early Career Design Fellowship, MacDowell Colony Fellowships. Teaching: Buhnenbild Szenischer Raum, TU, Berlin; School of Constructed Environments, Parsons, NYC. M.F.A. NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Visual Arts at Whitney Independent Study Program; B.F.A. Cooper Union.

New York Theater and dance: Progressive Coma, Ailey Citigroup Theater; Telephone, The Foundry; No Foreigners Beyond This Point, Wave, Savage Acts, Ma-Yi Theater; L’Italianna in Algeri, New York City Opera; Landscape of the Body, Senba Zuru, The Tutor, The Maharabata, Julliard School; The Really Big Once, Goethe’s Faust, The Five Hysterical Girls Theorem, Measure for Measure, Target Margin Theater; Great Expectations, Theaterworks USA. Opera: Arianna in Crete, Gotham Chamber Opera; Marie Gallante, Castor et Pollux, Péleas et Melisande, To Be Sung, L’Opera Français de New York. Regional: Chocolate Soldier, Of Thee I Sing, Diary of One Who Vanished, Bard Summerscape; Artificial, Magic Frequencies, Jacob’s Pillow Festival. Opera: Tancredi, Opera Boston; La Tragédie de Carmen, Chicago Opera Theater; Faustus the Last Night, Romeo et Juliette, Spoleto USA Festival; Don Giovanni, L’Italianna in Algeri, Glimmerglass Opera; Hansel and Gretel, Ballymore, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Skylight Opera Theatre; Un Giorno di Regno, L’Etoile, Xerxes, Wolf Trap Opera. International opera: Bear-Girl King, Rhienhartswald, Staattheater-Kassel Germany; Process Kafka, Royal Danish Opera, Copenhagen, Denmark; Fancuilla del West, L’Etiole, Opera Zuid, Masstrict Netherlands. M.F.A., sculpture, University of Pennsylvania; M.F.A., set and costume design, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University; B.S. in Fine Arts, Skidmore College.

A.R.T.: Jagged Little Pill, Ajax, The Blue Flower, Trojan Barbie, Hamletmachine, The Onion Cellar. Broadway: St. Joan, Present Laughter, The Little Foxes, American Psycho (Tony nomination), The Humans (Tony nomination), Fool for Love, Casa Valentina, A Night with Janis Joplin, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Other Place, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. Awards: Outer Critics Circle Award, Henry Hewes Award, Lucille Lortel Award, Drama Desk Award, Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Lighting Design (2014). Townsend is an Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College. 

A.R.T.: Pippin, The Lily’s Revenge, As You Like It, Once, Prometheus Bound, The Blue Flower (IRNE and Elliot Norton Award), Cabaret, Alice vs. Wonderland, Paradise Lost. Sound Design credits: Broadway: Once (Tony Award, Drama Desk Award nomination). New York: Soul Doctor, Once (Lucille Lortel Award nomination), New York Theatre Workshop. London: BBC: “Dancing With The Stars,” “Later with Jools Holland,” “The Sound of Musicals,” “Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.” ITV: “Parkinson.” Music: Radiohead, Jamiroquai, Paolo Nutini, Orbital, Sparks, The Waterboys, Glastonbury Festival, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal College of Music. Woodhouse Players: The Dresser, Wyrd Sisters, Dracula—The Vampire Strikes Back. He has worked on numerous shows including work at: Brooklyn Academy of Music, Hollywood Bowl, Madison Square Garden, Royal Festival Hall, Avignon Festival.

Amanda Friou is a director and multi-disciplinary artist primarily focused on developing new work. Assistant Director: Limelight, La Jolla Playhouse. Director: New York: Hinterland, Ars Nova; Pimp, Wonderland Collective; The Leafpile and The Two Brothers (Best Director nominee), The Network Festival; My Romeo, The Guerilla Shakespeare Project; Seussical, Wingspan Arts; Miraculous Day Quartet, Gene Frankel Theatre; Violating Uncle Piggy, Gallery Players. Other directing credits include: One Good Beating, Love Poem #98, Terminating and The Secret Garden. Puppetry: Arias with a Twist, Behind the Lid, Hansel and Gretel and Dogugaeshi for Basil Twist; The Lifecycle of a Butterfly, Hudson Vagabond Puppets; The Snow Queen, Peter and The Wolf, The Story of Jumping Mouse and Through the Looking Glass, Das Puppenspiel Puppet Theater. She is a proud graduate of Macalester College.

Multi-instrumentalist, recording engineer and producer; currently on staff of The Ohio State University School of Music. Mark Rubinstein has performed with Herbie Mann, Eddie Gomez, Bunky Green, Rufus Reid, Jim Allen, Dirk Hamilton and George Carver, and engineered or produced recordings with artists including Natalie Cole, Shirley Horn, Cher, Grover Washington, Jr., Judy Collins, Backstreet Boys and Buttercup. Mark served as accordionist in the original Weimarband, and was music director of The Blue Flower in New York in 2008. Recent credits include music direction for Jazz on Tap and Sole to Soul dance festivals, music recording work for the documentary A Bridge Life and short film Betrayed and the recording of a new album of music from The Blue Flower featuring the original members of the Weimarband.

Glens Falls Symphony Music Director. New England Conservatory Faculty Conductor. Opera: Buffalo Opera Co. resident conductor; Boston Academy; Hartt School Opera. Theater: Fiddlehead Theater Co. music director; Reagle Players, guest. Ballet: New Jersey Ballet, guest; Zodiaque Dance Co. Orchestra: Orquestra Nacional de Colombia; Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland; Buffalo Philharmonic; Pacific Symphony; Hamilton Philharmonic; Syracuse Symphony staff conductor; Harvard Mozart Society Orchestra; Lincoln Center Festival; records for MODE records (including Palm d’Or winner).

Ryan McKittrick is the Director of Artistic Programs & Dramaturg at the American Repertory Theater. He received a Master of Theater Arts in Dramaturgy from the A.R.T./Moscow Art Theatre School Institute for Advanced Theater Training and a B.A. in History and Literature from Harvard College. He is Lecturer and Head of Dramaturgy in the Theater, Dance & Media concentration at Harvard and Assistant Professor of Theater Arts at Brandeis University. At the A.R.T., he has served as dramaturg on numerous plays, operas, and musicals, over half of which were world premieres.

A.R.T.: Stage Manager: Prometheus Bound; The Blue Flower; Cabaret; Johnny Baseball; Paradise Lost; Best of Both Worlds; Romance; Endgame; The Communist Dracula Pageant; When It’s Hot, It’s Cole; Donnie Darko. Assistant Stage Manager: The Seagull; Oliver Twist; The Onion Cellar. Production Associate: Island of Slaves; Desire Under the Elms. A.R.T. Institute: Stage Manager: The Front Page; Arabian Night; Zoya; Mayhem; A Bright Room Called Day; The Island of Anyplace; The Bacchae; Spring Awakening; Donnie Darko. Gloucester Stage Company: Production Stage Manager: The Woman in Black. Lyric Stage Company: Production Stage Manager: Kiss Me, Kate; Three Tall Women; Adrift in Macao. Actors’ Shakespeare Project: Stage Manager: King John.

A.R.T.: The Blue Flower. New York: Love Kills, NYMF. Regional: The Miracle at Naples, The Huntington Theatre; The Island of Slaves, Orfeo Group; Speech and Debate, Laughing Wild, The Bald Soprano, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, The Pillowman, What The Butler Saw, Fabuloso, Hunter Gatherers, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre; Trouble and Chocolate, Boston Midsummer Opera; Boston Theatre Marathon 2009, Miss Margaret LaRue, Comp, Boston Playwrights Theatre; Angels in America: Parts I and II, Boston Theatre Works.

A.R.T.: Resident vocal coach since 1997; 70 productions, most recently dialect design for Once, Pippin, and Glass Menagerie. Regional theater coaching: A.C.T., Guthrie. Has worked with directors Diane Paulus, John Tiffany, Sarah Benson, Bill T. Jones, Andrei Serban, David Mamet, Robert Woodruff, among others. A.R.T. Institute Head of Voice & Speech: vocal production, dialects, Shakespeare; heads M.F.A. program in voice pedagogy. National workshops on public speaking and storytelling; Harvard’s Bok Center filmed her work with Harvard faculty: “The Act of Teaching.” Performance credits: A.C.T., California Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center Theater, San Jose Rep, Alaska Rep & Joyce Theater. B.A. Stanford, M.F.A. American Conservatory Theater, Master Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework.

Stephen Schwartz has contributed music and/or lyrics to Godspell, The Magic Show, The Baker’s Wife, Working (which he also adapted and directed), Rags, Children of Eden, My Fairytale, and the current Broadway hit, Wicked. He collaborated with Leonard Bernstein on the English texts for Bernstein’s Mass and wrote the title song for the play and movie Butterflies are Free. For children, he has written songs for two musicals, Captain Louie and My Son Pinocchio. For films, he collaborated with Alan Menken on the songs for Disney’s Enchanted, as well as the animated features Pocahantas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and wrote the songs for the DreamWorks animated feature The Prince of Egypt. He has released two CDs of new songs entitled “Reluctant Pilgrim” and “Uncharted Territory.” His first opera, Séance on a Wet Afternoon, premiered with Opera Santa Barbara in the fall of 2009 and was recently produced by New York City Opera. A book about his career, “Defying Gravity,” has recently been released by Applause Books. Under the auspices of the ASCAP Foundation, he runs musical theatre workshops in New York and Los Angeles, and is currently the President of the Dramatists’ Guild. Mr. Schwartz has recently been given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Other awards include three Academy Awards, four Grammy Awards, four Drama Desk Awards, and a tiny handful of tennis trophies.

Andrew Levine is the Executive Producing Director of Flying Machine Productions, overseeing the development of new theater, music and musical theater works. Broadway: Speed-the-Plow, Elling. West End: Carousel. Off-Broadway: Blood Type: Ragu. His involvement with The Blue Flower includes past developmental productions at Perry-Mansfield, NYMF and Prospect Theatre. As a founding member of Body Politic Theater: Lemkin’s House by Catherine Filloux, The Fulla From America by Carlyle Brown. He served as music director of the prestigious New Works festival at Perry-Mansfield School of the Performing Arts in Steamboat Springs, CO, where he initiated programs to develop new musicals, train composer/lyricists in the craft of writing for the stage and develop singers in the art of cabaret. He spent four years as the resident music director for the Savannah College of Art and Design and has recently held positions on the theater faculties of The Hartt School and PACE University. Andrew has earned degrees from the Manhattan School of Music (BMus) and Georgia Southern University (MMus) and resides in Connecticut with his wife Jeanine Pardey and his son Garrett.

Steve Tate has worked in nonprofit regional and commercial Broadway theater for ten years and has since established Tate Theatrics, a full service theatrical producing office dedicated to the harnessing and creation of innovative and eclectic work driven by a new generation of emerging artists. Previous producing credits include award-winning Green Eyes, Here Today, Onward, Prospect Theater Company 10th Anniversary Concert and The Four. He was named one of seven American producers to participate in London’s TS Eliot U.S./UK Exchange presented by The Old Vic, the historical home of Laurence Olivier and currently under the artistic direction of Kevin Spacey. A graduate from the University of California San Diego (UCSD), he spent four years at the Tony Award-winning La Jolla Playhouse working marketing and communications to theater education. Commercially, he ventured into the Broadway realm as Marketing Manager of Rent during its 10th Season of Love and national movie launch while employed at TMG—The Marketing Group. He worked in the online advertising arm of Broadway with Situation Interactive, serving a variety of productions including Tony Award-winning Spring Awakening, A Chorus Line (2006 revival), Blue Man Group and Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County.

Broadway: Mary Poppins (George Banks), Wrong Mountain (Clifford Pike), Big (Josh Baskin, Drama Desk nomination), Angels in America (Prior Walter), Big River (Huck Finn, 1985 Tony and Drama Desk nominations), Big River 2003 revival (Mark Twain). Off-Broadway: Love Child (co-writ-ten and performed with Robert Stanton), PrimaryStages and New World Stages; Bye Bye Birdie (Albert), The Pajama Game (Prez), Encores!; Spinning Into Butter, Lincoln Center; Dream True, The Maiden’s Prayer, Feast Here Tonight (composer/performer), Vineyard Theatre; Triumph of Love, CSC; Johnny Pye (Johnny), The Lamb’s; Five Visits from Mr. Whitcomb, Young Playwrights Festival. Regional: The Education of Randy Newman, ACT; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hangar Theater; Fortinbras, Twelfth Night, La Jolla Playhouse; Citizen Tom Paine, Philadelphia Theatre Company/Kennedy Center; two years of productions at Actors Theatre of Louisville; O’Neill Playwrights Center; Sundance Playwrights Lab. Film: O.C. and Stiggs (O.C.), Tanner ’88 (Stringer Kinkaid), The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (Willie Keith), for Robert Altman; Joshua, Cradle Will Rock, Glory, In Country, What Comes Around, Infested, The Perfect You, Five Corners. Television: "Law & Order," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "Law & Order: SVU," "Cracker," "The Knife and Gun Club," "Florida Straits," "Going to Extremes" (Alex).

MEGHAN McGEARY played Hannah in The Blue Flower at the A.R.T. (2010 I.R.N.E. Award), and the subsequent Off-Broadway production at Second Stage. Recent credits include The Great Immensity at Kansas City Rep with The Civilians (Allie/Emmanuelle), The Fortress of Solitude at New York Stage and Film (Rachel), The Rockae at Prospect Theater Company (Agave), and a Barrymore Award Nomination for Aspects of Love at the Media Theater (Giulietta Trapani). She is co-founder of Dagmar, a meta-folk song cycle penned by Jim Bauer.

A.R.T.: Moby-Dick, The Tempest, The Blue Flower, bobrauschenbergamerica. Broadway: Indecent, The Visit, Enron, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, Aida, Girl From The North Country (upcoming). International: Laurie Anderson’s Songs and Stories from Moby Dick; Richard Foreman’s Pearls for Pigs; Tadashi Suzuki’s Dionysus; The Merchant of Venice, RSC, TFANA. Thirty years of Off-Broadway and Regional productions. Founding member, SITI Company. Honors: Eliot Norton Award (Prospero, The Tempest), OBIE Award (Marshal McLuhan, The Medium). Education/​Training: MFA, UC San Diego.

New York: No End of Blame (Innovative Theatre Award nomination), Atlantic, PTP/NYC; The King is Dead, Abingdon; Mine, Slant Theatre Project;
company member of Naked Radio, Naked Angels; Swords (ECNY Award nomination), People’s Improv Theatre; Barnes and Noble: Frisco, TX (creator), We Are Not Birds, Love Money, Ars Nova. Regional: Six Degrees of Separation, After the Revolution, Girls’ Day, Young Jean Lee’s Pullman, WA, Williamstown; The Bewitched, Kennedy Center; The Consequences, Wellfleet; The Best Man, The American Dream, Harold Pinter’s Press Conference (national premiere), Potomac Theatre Project. TV/Film: Northeast, "Michael and Michael Have Issues." His satiric political videos have been featured on MSNBC, BBC News, ITV and the NY Times, Time, Politico and Washington Post online, among others. B.A. Middlebury College.

New York: Stairway to Paradise, NY City Center Encores!; Fahrenheit 451, 59E59; The $trip, Nerve Ensemble. Touring: Wicked (Elphaba), San Francisco
and Los Angeles productions; Pippin (Catherine), national tour. Regional: 1776, Pippin, Goodspeed Musicals; Turandot Rumble for the Ring, Bay Street Theatre. Training: University of California Irvine, Claire Trevor School of the Arts.

Regional theater: Speech & Debate, Lyric Stage Company of Boston, Wellfleet Harbor Actor’s Theatre; The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?, New Stage Collective, Cincinnati; The Investigation of the Murder in El Salvador, Satori Group, Seattle; Holiday Memories, The Huntington Theatre/Olney Theatre; Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, Northern Kentucky Theatre; The Tempest, The Shakespeare Project; Strawberry Pie, JAM Prod, Cincinnati Fringe; White Rabbit, Valley Arts Project. Movement/dance: Presence, Polatin Alexander Technique; The 4 Food Groups and The Factory, Pones Inc, Cincinnati. B.F.A. from Boston University School of Theater/London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, England.

A.R.T.: Oedipus (Ensemble). Regional: The Good War, The Grapes of Wrath, Stoneham Theatre; Patience of Nantucket, Up You Mighty Race; Hello Out There, Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance; Angels in America, Opera Boston; The New Moon, New England Light Opera. TV/Film: Surrogates, The Way. Master’s in Music, Boston University; Bachelor’s in Music, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Multi-instrumentalist, recording engineer and producer; currently on staff of The Ohio State University School of Music. Mark Rubinstein has performed with Herbie Mann, Eddie Gomez, Bunky Green, Rufus Reid, Jim Allen, Dirk Hamilton and George Carver, and engineered or produced recordings with artists including Natalie Cole, Shirley Horn, Cher, Grover Washington, Jr., Judy Collins, Backstreet Boys and Buttercup. Mark served as accordionist in the original Weimarband, and was music director of The Blue Flower in New York in 2008. Recent credits include music direction for Jazz on Tap and Sole to Soul dance festivals, music recording work for the documentary A Bridge Life and short film Betrayed and the recording of a new album of music from The Blue Flower featuring the original members of the Weimarband.

Peter Bufano plays accordion and creates music for circuses, film, TV and other visual media. His work includes collaborations with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Kinoshita Circus, Big Apple Circus, Circus Smirkus, Bindlestiff Cirkus and The Kentucky Symphony Orchestra. He founded the group Cirkestra who have performed recently at the Hynes Convention Center, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Seattle Art Museum, Brattle Theater, Berklee Performance Center, The Paramount Theater and Virgin Mobile Free Fest. He is a graduate of Berklee College of Music and Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College.

Patrick Carmichael was asked to participate in The Blue Flower here in Boston because he’s the only drummer who has ever tackled this music since Jim Bauer first presented the idea in 2000. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. Back home, he keeps busy subbing for The Lion King on Broadway, playing in Woody Allen’s Dixieland Band, and going out on the road with Bill Haley’s Comets, among many other things. One of Patrick Carmichael’s favorite things to do is to lay down an infectious groove on the drums and bring the music to life, a passion that has kept him gainfully employed for over ten years.

Steve Latt has been a New England area musician for over twenty years, playing an average of 125–150 gigs a year for such diverse acts as Americana artists John Cate and the Van Gogh Bros., the folk act Dagmar, rockabilly artists Lonesome Jukebox and Irish punk group The Gobshites. He has also played on over 250 separate releases. A 1987 graduate of Berklee College of Music, his musical experience ranges from classical and jazz to country and folk. His role as a multi-instrumentalist includes guitar, fiddle/violin, pedal steel, dobro, banjo and mandolin. His CD American Rose is available on Plymro records. He was born in Chicago and has a wife and two daughters.

Member, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston. Performances with Opera Boston, Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra and Orchestra of St. Lukes. Owner/cone-filler/mechanic, Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. Candidate for Doctor of Musical Arts at City of New York University Graduate Center; Master of Music from The Juilliard School; Bachelor of Music from Manhattan School of Music. Tanglewood Music Center 1995–1996.

Mike Rivard graduated from Berklee College of Music and also studied privately with Dave Holland. His performing/recording credits include Morphine, John Medeski & Billy Martin (MMW), Either/Orchestra, Jonatha Brooke, Aimee Mann, Shawn Colvin, Paula Cole and many others. He leads the award-winning dub-jazz-trance group Club d’Elf, recipient of the Boston Music Award in 2007 for Outstanding Jazz Act, and performs with world music groups Natraj & Grand Fatilla, as well as the Boston Pops and the Broadway tours of Wicked, Disney’s The Lion King, The Color Purple and others. He was composer and musical director for the Vadalna Tribal Dance Company’s Menagerie (2010) and Bassist in Residence at Jacob’s Pillow (2006). For the past eight years he has been immersed in Moroccan music, particularly that of the Gnawa people, and has taught himself to play the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute used in their trance ceremonies.

Emileigh Brooke Vandiver has made fourteen appearances with orchestras, performing in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Jordan Hall, the Moores Opera House, the Hobby Center and at Lincoln Center. She has also performed with Savion Glover, Charlotte Church and Gloria Estefan. She holds an undergraduate degree from the New England Conservatory of Music where she studied with Paul Katz. She is currently completing her Master’s degree at the New England Conservatory with Natasha Brofsky. She is on the faculty at Project STEP and the Four Strings Music Academy, and maintains a private cello and solfege studio in Jamaica Plain.

After years of playing with top Nashville touring artists, John Widgren is currently a "first call" recording session and live performance player. He has done countless commercials and jingles. He is also a first call musician for WGBH. Film score credits: Andy Warhol (directed by Ric Burns), Astronaut Farmer (directed by the Polish Brothers), Angelo My Love (directed by Robert Duvall). He has played with recording artists including Patti Loveless, Harry Connick, Jr., Commander Cody, Archer/Park, Toby Keith, Kelli O’Hara and Martin Sexton. Widgren has worked as a guest instrumentalist with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra (nationally televised July 4th celebration) and the Mark Morris Dance Group. Broadway: Paul Simon’s The Capeman, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Always Patsy Cline, Bugs Bunny on Broadway. M.F.A., University of Oklahoma; B.F.A., SUNY New Paltz, N.Y.