THE BEATNIK CAFE: A musical Revue of the Jazz Beat Generation by Namaya
 

The NYC Off Broadway Show live at the Regent!

www.beatnikcafemusical.com

The Beatnik Café by Namaya live from New York! A musical revue of the Jazz Beat Generation an off Broadway revue has played to a sold out audience in NYC with terrific reviews. The Beatnik Cafe is the scene of cool jazz music, Jack Kerouac, Lord Buckley and the culture of the 40s to the 60s that bred the baby boomers.

Beatnik Café  directed by the Broadway theater veteran Debra Whitfield stars living legends of the Beat Generation and an outstanding band. Lillie Bryant Howard jazz & blues singer of Swan Records fame with her hits in the l950’s; Richmond Shepard appearing as Lord Buckley who performed with Lord Buckley in the l950's, will perform the Nazz.  The all star jazz ensemble led by Chris Sullivan on bass, http://www.myspace.com/christopherdeansullivan), Andrew Bemkey on piano (http://andrewbemkey.com/), Joe Rigby on saxophone Maggie Kus and Taeko Fukao are the other featured jazz vocalists. Jake Lewis portrays Jack Kerouac. Namaya, the playwright, is the Beat Poet who guides the audience through the culture and stories of the beat era.

Reviews

NiteLife Exchange, “The heart of the Beat Generation was recreated by intertwining it with authentic bebop jazz running from 1940’s to 1960’s….The music was terrific. Richmond Shepard portraying Lord Buckley (the hipster monologist). His jazzed up, skewed retelling of the Biblical story regarding “Jonah and the Whale” was a delightful sort of verbal be-bop’"

Joe Franklin said, “Riveting! I loved it.”

Ovation: “With reverence, fun and a hip style Beatnik Café salutes an era.”

The Rutland Herald said: "The Beatnik Cafe is an artistic simpatico that's tough to cultivate in a multimedia ensemble piece of such complexity." Beatnik Café "Is one hip, high-caliber theatrical event." This unconventional cabaret is part homage, part history lesson, part pop-culture happening, weaving renowned gems such as "Take Five," Monk's "Round Midnight" into the socio-political fabric of Ginsburg's "Howl, Beatnik Café is an engaging timeline of the musical, literary, and trend-setting luminaries."

 
If you liked Smokey Joe's Café, you will love this!

The audience is invited to dress in their beatnik & hipster threads and finger pop themselves back in time. Go - daddy o'! Prize for the hippest dressed beatnik.

Al Rowadd Theater Group:

As with all shows we will be donating a percentage of the gate to a non-profit the Alrowadd theater group located in  a refugee camp Aida in Palestine (

http://www.alrowwad-acts.ps/eindex.php)

"We do not have the luxury of despair, but the steadfast hope that we can make a beautiful change for our children and the generations to come". Alrowwad, initiator of the "Beautiful Non-violent Resistance", is an independent, dynamic, community-based not-for-profit organization which strives to empower children and women by targeting behavior, knowledge, concepts and practices through beautiful and non-violent means.

(Ironically, the same issues of civil rights and human dignity that the Beatnik Café addresses are the same struggle the Palestinians now face)