About Penny Orloff

Actor

Penny Orloff has been an actor since childhood, having scored successes while still a teenager in such roles as Anne Frank and Juliet in Los Angeles. Relocating to New York City in the ‘70’s she subsequently played lead and featured roles on and off Broadway, working opposite Peter Gallagher, George Hearn, Joel Grey and Wallace Shawn under such directors as Harold Prince and Joseph Papp. Her roles run the gamut from Shakespeare’s Katherina and Cleopatra to Neil Simon and John Guare; and from leads in classic musicals to original casts. Three of her stage performances are part of the video collection at Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts. Her one-woman show, JEWISH THIGHS ON BROADWAY, loosely based on her misadventures in show business, earned rave reviews when it appeared at the Seattle Fringe Theater Festival in March, 2000. The play was the most successful offering at Bite of the Fringe at SecondStory Rep later that year. Orloff continues performing the piece nation-wide in limited engagements and on tour.

Singer

Penny Orloff was a working actor and dancer in Los Angeles when a Juilliard Opera Scholarship took her to New York. She earned critical acclaim for her work on Broadway, after seven seasons and more than twenty principal soprano roles with New York City Opera. Symphony, recital, oratorio and opera engagements have taken her all over the United States, Europe and the former Soviet Union, in theaters such as the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles, to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Her roles range from Aldonza in MAN OF LA MANCHA to LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR and Mozart’s Susanna, Fiordiligi and Donna Anna. She has recorded for Vox-Turnabout, Warner-Nonesuch, Protone and Original Cast Records. She has recently performed sets of Russian folksongs, accompanying herself on guitar, as Featured Artist in a series of appearances with the Radost Folk Ensemble of Seattle.

Writer

Playwright-novelist Penny Orloff won her first literary award at the age of nine in Los Angeles. Her work ranges from a comic novel, JEWISH THIGHS ON BROADWAY - due out in Spring, 2003 - to her popular three-part workbook, ART AS LIFEWORK, LIFE AS ARTWORK, to plays and original librettos.

Her Mozart rewrites – or decompositions – are among her favorite pieces. These include a Civil War, Rhett-and-Scarlett version of MARRIAGE OF FIGARO; a Texas-saloon, dance-hall-girls and singing-cowboys version of COSI FAN TUTTE; and a producer of dubious TV fare DON GIOVANNI.

Among her plays are the one-woman show based on her novel, JEWISH THIGHS ON BROADWAY; and SIDE SHOW, an experimental work exploring the fringes of show business. Original librettos for commissioned musical works include THE FROG PRINCE, THE ANT & THE GRASSHOPPER (with famed New York composer, Allen Shawn), and a fractured fairy-tale version of LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD.

Director

Having had the good fortune to work with such visionary directors as Harold Prince, Joseph Papp and Frank Corsaro, Penny Orloff has developed an eclectic, personal style of theater presentation. She staged numerous cabaret revues for Hollywood Light Opera and Luigi’s in Los Angeles; and nearly a dozen revues for East Shore Dinner Theater in Bellevue, Washington.

Orloff staged the dance numbers for THE BOY FRIEND for Westchester Playhouse in New York; and choreographed the Angel Ballet for Scarsdale Opera’s HANSEL AND GRETEL..

She has directed full productions of OKLAHOMA, THE MERRY WIDOW, DIE FLEDERMAUS, MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, COSI FAN TUTTE, LA BOHEME, AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS, A GERSHWIN RHAPSODY, FILM-FLAM, SIDE SHOW, LONE STAR LADIES; as well as many productions for the Chaspen Opera For Young Audiences program, and Redmond Children’s Playhouse.

She wrote and directed A GERSHWIN CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, which premiered on the actual hundredth anniversary of George Gershwin’s birth,starring several of Seattle’s top musical theater performers, as well as International opera star, Awilda Verdejo..

As Artistic Director of the Radost Folk Ensemble from 1999-2001, she staged a dozen productions for that company in 16 months, and produced the Ensemble’s 25th Anniversary CD, HEIRLOOM, released in September, 2001.

Her recent work as director/choreographer on BYE BYE BIRDIE for Longview Stageworks in Longview, WA, brought terrific reviews and some nice money.