Charles Repole
Encyclopedia
Charles Repole is an American
actor
, theatre director, and college
professor
.
Repole made his Broadway
debut in Very Good Eddie
in 1975, earning a Tony Award
nomination and a Theatre World Award
for his performance. Additional Broadway credits include the 1979 revival of Whoopee!
, which garnered him a Drama Desk Award
nomination, Doubles (1985), and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
(1995), which he directed.
Repole's directing experience ranges from Broadway to the Kennedy Center to Carnegie Hall
to regional theatre
. He has helmed concert versions of DuBarry Was a Lady
with Faith Prince
and Robert Morse
and Call Me Madam
with Tyne Daly
for the New York City Center Encores!
series. Since 1999, he has conceived and directed the annual fund-raising gala for the 92nd Street Y
which included working with such performers as Alvin Ailey
, Martha Graham
, Angela Lansbury
, Bebe Neuwirth
, Jerry Herman
, Carol Channing
, and Elaine Stritch
, among many others. He also conceived and has directed the MAC Awards
.
Repole also has directed productions of George M!
with Joel Grey
, Zorba
with Anthony Quinn
, Annie
with Rue McClanahan
, The Solid Gold Cadillac
with Charlotte Rae
, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera
's 50th Anniversary production of My Fair Lady
, and a musical version of Animal Crackers
at the Goodspeed Opera House. For his production of A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine in Chicago
, he was nominated for the Joseph Jefferson Award
.
At present, Repole is the Chairperson of the Drama, Theatre, and Dance Department at Queens College
in Flushing, New York, where he teaches Acting, Directing, and Musical Theatre Workshop. He also has directed many main stage productions there, including Bus Stop
, Carousel
, Guys and Dolls and Aaron Copland
's opera
The Tender Land
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, theatre director, and college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
.
Repole made his Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
debut in Very Good Eddie
Very Good Eddie
Very Good Eddie is a musical with a book by Guy Bolton and Philip Bartholomae, music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics by Schuyler Green and Herbert Reynolds, with additional lyrics by Elsie Janis, Harry B. Smith and John E. Hazzard and additional music by Henry Kailimai. The story was based on the farce...
in 1975, earning a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
nomination and a Theatre World Award
Theatre World Award
The Theatre World Award, first awarded for the 1945-46 season, is an American honor presented annually to actors and actresses in recognition of an outstanding New York City stage debut performance, either on Broadway or off-Broadway.-History:...
for his performance. Additional Broadway credits include the 1979 revival of Whoopee!
Whoopee!
Whoopee! is a musical comedy with the book, based on Owen Davis's play The Nervous Wreck, written by William Anthony McGuire, music by Walter Donaldson and lyrics by Gus Kahn...
, which garnered him a Drama Desk Award
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
nomination, Doubles (1985), and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (musical)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a musical with a book by Joseph Fields and Anita Loos, lyrics by Leo Robin, and music by Jule Styne, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Loos...
(1995), which he directed.
Repole's directing experience ranges from Broadway to the Kennedy Center to Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
to regional theatre
Regional theatre in the United States
Regional theaters, or resident theaters, in the United States are professional or semi-professional, theater companies that produce their own seasons. The term regional theatre most often refers to professional theatres outside of New York City...
. He has helmed concert versions of DuBarry Was a Lady
DuBarry Was a Lady
DuBarry Was a Lady is a Broadway musical, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, and the book by Herbert Fields and B.G. DeSylva. The musical starred Bert Lahr, Ethel Merman and Betty Grable, and the song "Friendship" was one of the highlights...
with Faith Prince
Faith Prince
Faith Prince is an American actress and singer known primarily for her work on Broadway. Prince has won the Tony Award as Best Actress in a Musical and received three Tony nominations.-Life and career:...
and Robert Morse
Robert Morse
Robert Morse is an American actor and singer. Morse is best known for his appearances in musicals and plays on Broadway. He has also acted in movies and television shows. His best known role is that of J. Pierrepont Finch in the 1961 Broadway musical, and 1967 film How to Succeed in Business...
and Call Me Madam
Call Me Madam
Call Me Madam is a musical with a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and music and lyrics by Irving Berlin.A satire on politics and foreign affairs that spoofs America's penchant for lending billions of dollars to needy countries, it centers on Sally Adams, a well-meaning but ill-informed...
with Tyne Daly
Tyne Daly
Tyne Daly is an American stage and screen actress, widely known for her work as Detective Mary Beth Lacey in the television series Cagney & Lacey and as Maxine Gray in the television series Judging Amy. She is also known for her role as Alice Henderson in television series Christy...
for the New York City Center Encores!
Encores!
Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert is a program that has been presented by New York City Center since 1994. Encores! is dedicated to performing the full score of musicals that rarely are heard in New York City...
series. Since 1999, he has conceived and directed the annual fund-raising gala for the 92nd Street Y
92nd Street Y
92nd Street Y is a multifaceted cultural institution and community center located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, at the corner of E. 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Its full name is 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association...
which included working with such performers as Alvin Ailey
Alvin Ailey
Alvin Ailey, Jr. was an American choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York. Ailey is credited with popularizing modern dance and revolutionizing African-American participation in 20th century concert dance...
, Martha Graham
Martha Graham
Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...
, Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury
Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...
, Bebe Neuwirth
Bebe Neuwirth
Beatrice "Bebe" Neuwirth is an American actress, singer and dancer. She has worked in television and is known for her portrayal of Dr. Lilith Sternin, Dr. Frasier Crane's wife , on both the TV sitcom Cheers , and its spin-off Frasier...
, Jerry Herman
Jerry Herman
Jerry Herman is an American composer and lyricist, known for his work in Broadway musical theater. He composed the scores for the hit Broadway musicals Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage aux Folles. He has been nominated for the Tony Award five times, and won twice, for Hello, Dolly! and La Cage...
, Carol Channing
Carol Channing
Carol Elaine Channing is an American singer, actress, and comedienne. She is the recipient of three Tony Awards , a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination...
, and Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs...
, among many others. He also conceived and has directed the MAC Awards
Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs
The Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs was founded in 1983, primarily as an organization for cabaret owners, managers, and booking agents to meet and exchange ideas. The organization started accepting performers in 1985....
.
Repole also has directed productions of George M!
George M!
George M! is a Broadway musical based on the life of George M. Cohan, the biggest Broadway star of his day who was known as "The Man Who Owned Broadway." The book for the musical was written by Michael Stewart, John Pascal, and Francine Pascal. Music and lyrics were, of course, by George M...
with Joel Grey
Joel Grey
Joel Grey is an American stage and screen actor, singer, and dancer, best known for his role as the Master of Ceremonies in both the stage and film adaptation of the Kander & Ebb musical Cabaret. He has won the Academy Award, Tony Award and Golden Globe Award...
, Zorba
Zorba the Greek (musical)
Zorba is a musical with a book by Joseph Stein, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander. Adapted from the 1952 novel Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis and the subsequent 1964 film of the same name, it focuses on the friendship that evolves between Zorba and Nikos, a young American who has...
with Anthony Quinn
Anthony Quinn
Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...
, Annie
Annie (musical)
Annie is a Broadway musical based upon the popular Harold Gray comic strip Little Orphan Annie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and the book by Thomas Meehan. The original Broadway production opened in 1977 and ran for nearly six years with a blonde Annie as the poster...
with Rue McClanahan
Rue McClanahan
Rue McClanahan was an American actress, best known for her roles on television as Vivian Harmon on Maude, Fran Crowley on Mama's Family, and Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls, for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in 1987.-Early life:McClanahan was born Eddie Rue...
, The Solid Gold Cadillac
The Solid Gold Cadillac
The Solid Gold Cadillac is a 1956 film directed by Richard Quine and written by Abe Burrows, Howard Teichmann and George S. Kaufman. It was adapted from the hit Broadway play of the same name by Teichmann and Kaufman, in which they pillory big business and corrupt businessmen...
with Charlotte Rae
Charlotte Rae
Charlotte Rae is a prolific American character actress of stage, comedienne, singer and dancer, who in her six decades of television is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Edna Garrett in the sitcoms Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life...
, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera
Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera
Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera is a nonprofit professional theater company based in the Cultural District of Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA....
's 50th Anniversary production of My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
, and a musical version of Animal Crackers
Animal Crackers (theatre)
Animal Crackers is a musical with music and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby and a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. The musical starred the Marx Brothers.-Productions and background:...
at the Goodspeed Opera House. For his production of A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, he was nominated for the Joseph Jefferson Award
Joseph Jefferson Awards
The Joseph Jefferson Awards are given annually by a volunteer non-profit committee to acknowledge excellence in theatre in the Chicago area. Founded in 1968, the awards are given in tribute to actor Joseph Jefferson...
.
At present, Repole is the Chairperson of the Drama, Theatre, and Dance Department at Queens College
Queens College, City University of New York
Queens College, located in Flushing, Queens, New York City, is one of the senior colleges of the City University of New York. It is also the fifth oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning. The college's seventy seven acre campus is located in the heart of the...
in Flushing, New York, where he teaches Acting, Directing, and Musical Theatre Workshop. He also has directed many main stage productions there, including Bus Stop
Bus Stop (play)
Bus Stop is a 1955 play by William Inge. The 1956 film is only loosely based upon it.-Characters:Bus Stop is a drama, with romantic and some comedic elements. It is set in a diner in rural Kansas, about 20 miles west of Kansas City, Missouri during a snowstorm from which bus passengers must take...
, Carousel
Carousel (musical)
Carousel is the second stage musical by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II . The work premiered in 1945 and was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline...
, Guys and Dolls and Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
's opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
The Tender Land
The Tender Land
The Tender Land is an opera with music by Aaron Copland and libretto by Horace Everett, a pseudonym for Erik Johns. The opera tells of a farm family in the Midwest of the United States. Copland was inspired to write this opera after viewing the Depression-era photographs of Walker Evans and...
.