New York (Top40 Charts/ Our Time Official Website) - Entertainment Weekly Exclusive
Duncan Sheik Track, BackStage Magazine Feature Preview Our Time's 'Listen'
'It's a Great Cause' - EW
CD Features 'Both Somber and Triumphant Moments' BackStage
Alexander to be NY-1 TV's 'New Yorker of the Week'
Our Time's June 23rd Benefit CD, 'Listen' will be released June 23rd - the album is a collection of 15 original songs, written by children who stutter, and recorded by iconic artists including Carly Simon, Daryl Hall and John Oates, Duncan Sheik, Mandy Patinkin and many others. See Entertainment Weekly and Back Stage coverage, below.
Our Time is a non-profit organization centered on a one-of-a-kind Arts program that provides children who stutter with an environment of unconditional acceptance�a creative forum, where they can express themselves through art, music, writing and theater, slowly and without risk of being ridiculed. Founded by Taro Alexander, Our Time brings sensitivity and compassion to a group of youngsters who are often consumed by shame, or, worse, ignored. Tune in to NY-1 TV this weekend, as Alexander is honored as 'NEW YORKER OF THE WEEK' for his work with the Our Time kids.
On June 23rd, Kelli O'Hara, Michael Cerveris, Mary Testa, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Sherie Rene Scott, Holly Brook and cast members of 'Spring Awakening' will join together to celebrate the release of 'Listen' at an in-store event. The in-store performance and CD signing will take place at 4pm, at the new Barnes and Noble East Side event space, at 86th and Lexington Avenue.
(*)For Press interested in attending/photographing/filming Tuesday's in-store event, please contact [email protected] asap for details.
Entertainment Weekly:
EW Exclusive! Hear a new Duncan Sheik charity track Jun 19, 2009| by Clark Collis
Much to some of my coworkers' chagrin, I have no trouble expressing my opinions (my own mother claims I didn't say anything at all until the age of four, and have been making up for lost time ever since.) But not everyone is so fortunate. Our Time is a charity that helps kids who stutter by providing them with a special performing arts camp, and on June 23, they are releasing an album called Listen , featuring songs written by people who have been assisted by the non-profit and performed by a host of luminaries such a Carly Simon, Hall & Oates and Mandy Patinkin.
Below you can hear the-exclusive-to-the-Music Mix track "All I Want Is Love," which appears on the CD. The song was penned by 16-year-old Our Time member Andre Gillyard, and features Duncan Sheik, Holly Brook, and cast members from the Sheik-co-penned musical Spring Awakening.
Have a listen to the song and, while you're doing so, check out the Our Time website . It's a great cause and donations are welcome.
https://music-mix.ew.com/2009/06/duncan-sheik-exclusive-charity.html
BACK STAGE
Keeping Up with the Beat
Our Time, a company for young performers who stutter, releases its second CD.
- By Jessica Glenza JUNE 19, 2009
Taro Alexander carefully counted the number of paragraphs and students ahead of him. He dreaded reading aloud and was carefully timing his escape to the bathroom. The grammar-school student tried to avoid each moment he may have had to read aloud because of his debilitating stutter. A simple syllable could snag his speech and contort his face as he attempted to push through. Stammering elicited contempt from peers and advice from teachers; Alexander preferred to avoid the tribulation altogether.
There was one place Alexander felt comfortable speaking: the theater. His father was Robert Alexander, founder of the Living Stage Theater Company, a professional improvisational troupe at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. He catered to what he called "the forgotten people," making a marriage of art and empowerment seem intuitive.
Now 37, the younger Alexander has followed a similar path, working as an actor and teacher since moving to New York nearly 20 years ago. In 2001, he formed Our Time Theater Company, a company of young performers, ages 8 to 18, who stutter. They participate free of charge and collaborate with professional performers, who sing the songs and perform the plays with the students who have written them. Frequent collaborators include Paul Rudd, Sherie Rene Scott, and Michael Cerveris.
In keeping with its mission, Our Time will release its second full length album, Listen, which has both somber and triumphant moments, on Tuesday, June 23, at the Barnes & Noble at 86th Street and Lexington Avenue. Featured on the album is an A-list group, including Broadway notables such as Cerveris, Kelli O'Hara, and cast members of "Spring Awakening," as well as top pop singers of the '70s, including Daryl Hall, John Oates, and Carly Simon (who stammered for many years). The album was recorded at Jon Bon Jovi's studio.
The Listen album, released on Scott's Sh-K-Boom Records, has songs written that have been written over the course of Our Time's eight-year existence; it was recorded over the past two years. It has received praise from both "NBC Nightly News" ("not just kid songs") and USA Today ("astonishing").
O'Hara, who performed at Our Time's recent benefit and on Listen, says, "Any one who comes to see these kids will learn that [Our Time] is necessary," adding that "you're creating a voice for these kids who sometimes don't have one."
The album is just one of many projects for the company, which recently finished a mid-June production of two shows at the Cherry Lane Theatre: Awesome Alicious, by the company's 8- to 13-years-olds, and If You Go, written and performed by 13- to 18-year-olds. They were rehearsed for two weeks, every day after school, along with countless Saturdays throughout the school year.
Filling a Void
A common and mysterious phenomenon is the ability of some who stutter to speak or sing fluidly while performing. There are 60 million people worldwide who stutter, says Alexander, among them nuanced and colorful artists. And, according to The Stuttering Foundation of America, Bruce Willis, James Earl Jones, B.B. King, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the late John Updike struggled with stuttering at one point in their lives.
"When I looked around the stuttering community, the one thing I didn't see was something fun, creative, and artistic for kids," says Alexander, who started the company after many years of privately attempting to accept his stutter.
Frequently, Alexander says, parents approach him after the show and remark, "It's so amazing my child didn't stutter once tonight," In fact, he adds, the stutter "was totally there... but what they no longer see is a child struggling."
Like Family
During one rehearsal, Ned Bealy, 18, and Michelle Polinsky, the 16-year-old composer, rehearsed "Thoughts on the Table," what Polinsky calls simply a song about "war and family" for the production of If You Go. The two stood in front of a sooty brick wall at the Cherry Lane, on a set of five risers individually colored yellow, red, green, purple, and lime.
Having mastered her lines, Polinsky sang loudly, clearly, and with confidence. When she speaks, she has a severe stutter; when she sings, it is practically inaudible.
She and Bealy ran through the chorus and one verse, after which Everett Bradley, Our Time's musical director, momentarily held up his hands, and said, "Wait." He rearranged the song's dynamics by emphasizing a different part of the musical phrase and modifying the arrangement with the piano player. Turning his attention to the singers, Bradley stressed their strong points, and the song once again strolled forward. The adjustments had nothing to do with stuttering-they were just a common bit chiropractic among director, musician, and performers.
Danielle Diesu, 18, who will leave the program soon, says that Our Time "helped me be like myself." The doe-eyed brunette pauses between some syllables when she speaks but otherwise seems poised and relaxed. Once painfully shy, she says, the people from the troupe are "basically my family."
Tom King, 17, who is also graduating from Our Time, says the program "gives us the freedom to express ourselves without feeling rushed at all."
Some of the graduating Our Time youth will go on to be counselors in this year's Our Time summer camp in August, a weeklong stay-away camp in Iroquois Springs, N.Y., which is designed for youth and their families.
Alexander describes the nuances of stutters while seated on the stage at Cherry Lane. Performing may or may not help, and stutters can fluctuate through a person's lifetime, but what is important to Alexander is "being an effective communicator.... You can be a brilliant communicator and [still] stutter up a storm."
https://www.backstage.com/bso/news-and-features-news/keeping-up-with-the-beat-1003986089.story
Other artists who recorded for 'LISTEN' include Blue Man Group, Ann Hampton Callaway, Michael Cerveris, Amanda Kravat, Adriane Lenox, Norm Lewis, Kelli O'Hara, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, Nicki Richards, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Sherie Rene Scott, Stomp, Mary Testa, Michelle Weeks, Lucy Woodward, Cast Members from Spring Awakening, and the youth of Our Time. Our Time's Taro Alexander and Everett Bradley provide vocals as well.
