Kim Criswell, international musical theater performer and Chattanooga native, will perform an evening of cabaret to benefit Mizpah Congregation, Ochs Memorial Temple on Tuesday, April 29, at 7 p.m. Her accompanist and long-time friend, Kevin Farrell, joins her from New York City. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m.
General admission seating is $10 until April 22 and $15 after that. Patron ticket holders will be guests at a champagne dessert reception following the concert. For ticket purchase and information about patron levels, call 267-9771 or go to the Temple’s website at mizpahcongregation.org.
Review for Kim Criswell:
From a very young age, Ms. Criswell dreamed of a career on the Broadway stage. Her parents, the late Carol and Herb Criswell of Hixson and later Signal Mountain, recognized her talents early and gave her singing, acting and dancing lessons. Kim performed in local productions throughout Chattanooga and at Six Flags over Georgia.
High School classmate Pam Ladd says, “Even at Hixson, we knew Kim was headed for the big time. Her talent was immense.” Kim went to the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music graduating with a degree in Musical Theater. As the cliché goes, she headed to New York and has never looked back.
Kim has been successful in musical theater, cabaret, concert performances throughout the world and as a recording star. She is a seasoned Broadway performer now living in London. She has made more than 25 recordings including solo albums. Broadway audiences will remember her from the original casts of Nine, Baby, The First, Stardust, and The Threepenny Opera (co-starring with Sting). In Los Angeles she starred as “Grizabella” in the original production of Cats, and was also seen as “Lalume” in Opera Pacific’s Kismet. London’s West End audiences have seen her in the title role of Annie Get Your Gun, Elegies for Angels Punks and Raging Queens, Dames at Sea and The Slow Drag.
She won a Helen Hayes Award for Side by Side by Sondheim at the Olney Theatre, and an Olivier Award nomination for her “Annie Oakley.” She has also appeared in two British TV mini-series: The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous and Savage Play. She has appeared in films, the latest being Hysteria.
Her solo recordings include solo albums, Something to Dance About: The Music of Irving Berlin, Back to Before, Bernstein: Music for Film and Theatre, and original cast albums including, Nine and Baby and studio cast albums including Anything Goes, Annie Get Your Gun, Kiss Me Kate, Fifty Million Frenchmen, Annie, Guys and Dolls and Man of La Mancha. She has appeared with symphony orchestras and in concert productions the world over, working with such luminaries as Sir Simon Rattle. With the BBC Concert Orchestra, she has appeared in concert productions of Pal Joy, Call Me Madam, One Touch of Venus and gala tributes to Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and two Stephen Sondheim tributes, including a BBC Proms 2000 concert. She can also be heard narrating the Naxos audiobook, “The History of the Musical” and has lectured on the history of musical theater.
Ms. Criswell will be celebrated earlier on April 29 as Tennessee’s Woman of Distinction at a luncheon sponsored by the American Lung Association. She will be joined by Chattanooga friends and members of the Criswell family, including her brother Dr. Chip Criswell and his family of Knoxville and her sister Melody of Virginia. She is married to Dr. Brett Kahr. Mizpah Congregation is a Reform Jewish Congregation founded in Chattanooga in 1866.