WINNER OF THE DRAMA DESK AWARD FOR “BEST SOLO PERFORMANCE”

MARY COSSETTE, DAVID ELLIOTT, AND MARTIN PLATT
ANNOUNCE
AN ON DEMAND STREAMING PRESENTATION OF
THE AWARD-WINNING PRODUCTION
“GEORGIE: MY ADVENTURES WITH GEORGE ROSE”
WRITTEN BY AND STARRING ED DIXON
DIRECTED BY ERIC SCHAEFFER

TICKETS AVAILABLE THROUGH THEATERMANIA.COM
THE YORK THEATRE COMPANY AND EL PORTAL THEATRE
TO OFFER STREAM TO SUBSCRIBERS

STREAMING ON DEMAND MAY 24 – JULY 18

New York, NY (May 20, 2021) – Producers Mary Cossette, David Elliott, and Martin Platt will present a streaming presentation of the award-winning play Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose, written by and starring Ed Dixon (Sunset Boulevard, Les Misérables) and directed by Eric Schaeffer. This critically acclaimed production will stream on demand for eight (8) weeksbeginning Monday, May 24 (through July 18). Tickets are $25 and are available through Theatermania.com here.

The stream will also be available from coast to coast at The York Theatre Company (New York) www.yorktheatrecompany.org and at El Portal Theatre (Los Angeles) at www.elportaltheatre.com, while across the pond, on Theatermania’s UK platform What’sOnStage (www.whatsonstage.com).

Georgie is a tale of how a chance encounter began an unlikely twenty-year friendship that flourished until the unimaginable changed everything. It is an amazing journey for all who love theater.

Georgie is the remarkable, giddy, and moving story of a young actor named Ed Dixon, who finds himself on tour with the two-time Tony Award winning character actor George Rose, the star of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, My Fair Lady, The Pirates of Penzance and 17 other Broadway plays and musicals. Georgie introduces us to the greatest stars of the London and Broadway stage with laughs and surprises, tantalizing anecdotes, and brilliant flashes of song and dance. Georgie is as hilarious and captivating as it is poignant and powerful.

“I wrote Georgie because It’s one of the largest events I’ve ever experienced in my life,” shared Ed Dixon. “It covers more than twenty-years, several countries, and a passel of famous people.” He goes on to add, “Why tell his story now? He died in 1988. Because the moment I started writing it, I just knew it had to be told. What I didn’t realize was that the story was so large it took years for me to mature enough to be able to tell it.” He ended by saying, “I don’t think a person is likely to have more than one story of this magnitude in a lifetime…Georgie is mine!”

The production team includes Eric Schaeffer (Director/Set Design), Chris Lee (Lighting Design) and Megan E. Coutts (Production Stage Manager).

Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose was developed at the Sharon Playhouse in Sharon, CT and received its world premiere at The Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, in January 2016. It enjoyed its Off-Broadway premiere at Davenport Theatre in February 2017, receiving critical acclaim and was awarded the 2017 Drama Desk Award for “Best Solo Performance.” The streaming presentation was filmed during the Off-Broadway engagement, which was produced by Martin Platt, David Elliott, Mary Cossette, Jamie deRoy, Riki Kane Larimer, Richard Winker, and Mike Blank.

BIOS

Ed Dixon (Performer/Playwright) has appeared in numerous Broadway shows, including No, No, Nanette, King of Schnorrers, The Three Musketeers, Les Misérables (the show’s 2nd and longest running Thenardier), Cyrano the Musical, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Iceman Cometh, The Best Man, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Sunday in the Park with George and Mary Poppins. Mr. Dixon was a soloist in the Kennedy Center’s premiere production of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass and is on the recording conducted by the composer. He also can be heard on the cast recording of the 2001 national tour of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. He toured as the Governor opposite Ann-Margret as Miss Mona and Gary Sandy as Ed Earl Dodd. Dixon won the 2010 Helen Hayes Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical for his turn as Max in Sunset Boulevard. In May 2012, he took over the role of The Captain in the Broadway revival of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes. Mr. Dixon is the author/composer of the musical Fanny Hill, which debuted in New York at The York Theatre after being launched at Goodspeed Musicals. Fanny Hill was nominated for two Drama Desk Awards and one Drama-Logue Award. He also wrote the musical Richard Cory with noted playwright A.R. Gurney. The musical won the Festival Prize and the Audience Award when it debuted at the New York Musical Theatre Festival. His latest work, Whodunit…The Musical, based on a Mary Roberts Rinehart mystery, has gained critical acclaim in regional venues throughout the United States.

Eric Schaeffer (Director) was the Co-founder and Artistic Director of Signature Theatre from 1989-2019. Founded in 1989, Signature grew into a major force in the American Theatre. Under his leadership, Signature Theatre was honored with the 2009 Tony Award® for Outstanding Regional Theater in America. At Signature, he directed over 70 productions from world premieres to American premieres. On Broadway, Schaeffer directed Gigi, the critically acclaimed Follies as well as the Tony Award®-winning Million Dollar Quartet, Glory Days and Putting It Together. His West End credits include Million Dollar Quartet, The Witches of Eastwick and Roy Orbison: In Dreams. His national tours include Million Dollar Quartet and Big. Off-Broadway, he has directed Sweet Adeline (City Center Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert) and Under the Bridge. He has directed Sweeney Todd (2017 & 2019) and Titanic in Seoul, South Korea. Schaeffer – who is known for his direction of Sondheim musicals having directed over 30 productions of his musicals worldwide – served as the Artistic Director of the acclaimed Sondheim Celebration at the Kennedy Center in 2002 as well as directing its productions of Sunday in the Park with George and Passion.

Chris Lee (Lighting Design) has lit over 300 shows on Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatre, London’s West End, Tokyo, film, opera, television, cruise ships, theme parks and Las Vegas spectacles. He has been nominated for Henry Hewes, Helen Hayes, Barrymore, Tina and Katherine Cornell Awards, and with the Walt Disney Creative Team, the 2015 IAAP Award for Best Overall Production of King Triton’s Concert. He was honored as Philadelphia’s Best Lighting Designer for Philadelphia magazine, and has been featured in Lighting Dimensions and Lighting Sound America.

George Rose (February 19, 1920 – May 5, 1988) was an English actor and singer in theatre and film. Born in Bicester, Oxfordshire and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. After graduation, wartime service and studies at Oxford, he made his Old Vic stage debut in 1946. Rose spent four years with the Old Vic company and made his Broadway debut in a 1946 production of Henry IV, Part I and continued to play in New York City and London’s West End for the remainder of the decade. He spent most of the 1950s appearing in broad comedy roles in the UK, later joining the Royal Shakespeare Company. He returned to Broadway to portray Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing in 1959. Two years later, he co-starred to much acclaim in Robert Bolt’s A Man For All Seasons, first in London and then in New York. This included Variety naming him best supporting actor for his portrayal of the Common Man. From then on, he appeared primarily in American plays and films. He made his screen debut in Midnight Frolics in 1949 and went on to make more than 30 films. Notable film credits include The Pickwick Papers (1952), Track the Man Down (1955), A Night to Remember (1958), Hawaii (1966), and A New Leaf (1971). Rose starred in the 1975 television series “Beacon Hill,” an Americanised version of “Upstairs, Downstairs.” Other television credits include “Naked City,” “Trials of O’Brien,” the mini-series “Holocaust” (1978), and several appearances on the “Hallmark Hall of Fame.” On Broadway, among other roles, he played the First Gravedigger in John Gielgud’s 1964 production of Hamlet starring Richard Burton, a suspicious storekeeper in William Hanley’s Slow Dance on the Killing Ground (1964), a bitter soldier in Peter Shaffer’s Royal Hunt of the Sun (1965), and the detective in Joe Orton’s Loot(1968). His first Tony Award nomination was for his portrayal of Louis Greff, Coco Chanel’s friend, in the musical Coco in 1969. In the 1974 comedy My Fat Friend, opposite Lynn Redgrave, he won a Drama Desk Award and received another Tony nomination. In 1976, he finally won a Tony as Alfred P. Doolittle in the Broadway revival of My Fair Lady. He received further acclaim in the role of General Burgoyne in The Devil’s Disciple, as Mr. Darling and Captain Hook in Peter Pan and as one of the replacements for Rex Harrison in The Kingfisher; he won a 1979 Drama Desk Award for the last. In 1980, he appeared as Major General Stanley in the hit Joe Papp adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance, co-starring Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt, being nominated for another Tony award. He also starred in the film adaptation of the production, released in 1983. Rose won his second Tony in 1986, for Rupert Holmes’ musical adaptation of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Rose was appearing in a national tour of Drood at the time of his death in 1988. His last film role was Pound Puppies and the Legend of Big Paw, in which he voiced the villain Marvin McNasty (and also sang one of the film’s songs). He died in the Dominican Republic in 1988.