“Hot Flashin’,” a new play written and produced by noted entertainer Gina Jourard – which she describes as “A Feel Better Musical Comedy” – and featuring the original music of renowned songwriter Tom Pergola, will make its world debut on Thursday, May 9 at The Odyssey Theater in West LA. The show will be performed four times during Mother’s Day weekend (May 9 – May 12th), and again another four times during the following weekend from May 16 – 19th.
For tickets, please visit: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1008002
For more information about “Hot Flashin’” please visit the show’s website: www.hotflashinmusical.com
Note: A portion of the proceeds generated by ticket sales for “Hot Flashin’” will be donated to the American Heart Association.
ABOUT “HOT FLASHIN’”
Written by Gina Jourard, with help from Ruth Mercado, and featuring 16 original songs, including 13 written by acclaimed musician/songwriter/composer Tom Pergola, “Hot Flashin’” is a “Feel Good Musical Comedy” that tells the story of a group of five women in their “middle to later years, who have seen it all!” These female characters have grown children and limited incomes, and are working through the challenges of life in the midst of rising living costs. Somehow they each have the ability to find humor in the stressful moments they confront by their unique life situations.
“Hot Flashin’” opens with five ladies dressed in extremely funny costumes – they are “Drama Mama,” “Mystery Mama,” “Earth Mama,” “Sassy Mama,” and “Survivor Mama.” Each woman gets a phone call from a Producer via his disembodied voice (think “Charlie” from “Charlie’s Angels” – a character the audience never sees), telling them they have been picked to star in a new reality television show. The premise of the TV show is to prove that “age is just a number,” and that regardless of how old you are or what you might look like, talent is still talent. The entire musical takes place within the producer’s rehearsal studio.
The show offers plenty of physical comedy, funny repartee, and hysterical songs, with titles such as “Hot Flashes,” “Dump that Chump,” “My Feet Hurt” and “Boob Operation,” among them. After the audience gets to know the plights and challenges of each of the five women, the play ends with the women becoming an official singing group. During the course of the play, the audience learns that the women’s performances have been streamed live over the Internet, and they’ve become a smash. The Producer is so pleased by their talent, he scores for the women a live performance residency in Las Vegas. Learning this, the ladies are thrilled.
Says the show’s director Dan Berkowitz, “Hot Flashin’ is a wonderful combination of outrageous comedy set against a backdrop of real-world situations.”
THE SONGS:
To hear a quick sample of 4 songs from the show:
“Hot Flashes”
“Dump that Chump”
“Boob Operation”
“My Feet Hurt”
Please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eOPbVRGBvM&feature=youtu.be
Note: Tom Pergola wrote 13 of the 16 original songs featured within “Hot Flashin’”. The additional 3 songs are: “”Dump That Chump” and “Shake It,” both co-written by Tom Pergola and Reggie Morris, and “Let the Love Shine Through,” which was written by Stevens and Foster.
About THE CAST:
GINA JOURARD/SHOW CREATOR & “MYSTERY MAMA”
“Hot Flashin’” Creator/Star Gina Jourard is the child of a noted showbiz family. She grew up in Las Vegas, where her dad, legendary comedian/big band singer Carme Pitrello, performed shows up and down the strip for many years.
As soon as she graduated high school, Gina moved from Vegas to the San Fernando Valley, where she worked and put herself through California State University at Northridge, earning a BA Degree in Broadcast Journalism. Following college graduation, Gina acted in various movies, including "This is Spinal Tap," “Novel Desires,” “Jacob’s Honor” and “Jacob’s Honor 2,” sang in a few rock bands, including O the Band, Kona Wind, and Magnifica, and threw herself headfirst into LA’s live entertainment scene.
For 30 years, Gina was the owner of a dance studio in The Valley called “Your Talent Workshop,” where she taught dance to a generation of kids, ages 3 to 13. During that time, she also acted and pursued her singing, even spending three months in Tokyo, Japan, dancing in a Greg Thompson's Las Vegas review “Video Girlz.”
Gina was the writer, director, and co-star of a feature film entitled “Flight to Danger,” the story of a female martial arts team who discover that the mysterious box they were asked to bring back to the U.S. after a competition in Paris is being sought by gangsters. Gina also sang on – and produced – a Rock ‘n Roll CD, “Come Into My World;” a Jazz CD, “Ageless Reflection;” and a Children’s CD, “Miss Gina’s Rompin’ Stompin’ Roundup.” All of her original music can be heard here: www.missginamusic.com.
In addition, Gina has ghostwritten a self-help/beauty guide to be sold on the QVC Network. Her latest creative endeavor has been to tap into her lifelong experience within the performing arts by writing – and starring in – her first musical, “Hot Flashin’.”
TRACE TAYLOR/’EARTH MAMA”
Trace Taylor began acting as a child in Cheltenham Glos., UK, with the Cheltenham Theatre & Gloucester County Youth Drama. Her professional work continued in the United States in regional theatres, and on PBS in Florida and New York.
Trace’s Off-Broadway music theatre and Broadway Cabaret credits include roles in Alice in Wonderland, May Poppins, and The Mamet Women, as well as work with the Theatre Guild in New York City as Associate Producer for Susannah York’s The Loves of Shakespeare’s Women. Among her career highlights to date have been doing a German voice-over for feature film The Good Shepherd, directed by Robert DeNiro, and serving as a double for Reba McEntire.
A member of the City Garage theatre troupe, Trace has appeared in Pheobe Zeitgeist Returns to Earth, and Hamletmachine: The Arab Spring, along with the company’s Moli re productions of The Bourgeois Gentleman, The School for Wives, and Tartuffe. Trace was most recently seen in Charles Mee’s Adam and Eve, and in Bertold Brecht’s The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui. Jazz music is Trace’s first love, and she has also worked with Barry Harris and his jazz vocal ensemble in NYC at the Village Vanguard, another career high point.
ARLETTE JONES/”DRAMA MAMA”
Arlette Jones has been in the entertainment industry since she was a teen growing up in Northern Ohio. There, she trained and performed at the Magical Theater Company. Since moving to Los Angeles, she has trained at the renowned Upright Citizens Brigade, and the Actors Studio of Orange County.
CINDY SHIELDS/”SASSY MAMA”
Cindy is a 40+ year veteran of stage, television, voice-over, film, and some of L.A.'s funniest murder mystery theatre. She is a happily busy stage actress with extensive credits, including some of her favorite roles such as (the rapping nun!) Sr. Mary Lazarus in Sister Act, Mrs. Tottendale in Drowsy Chaperone, Yente in Fiddler on the Roof, Sr. Mary Amnesia in Nunsense, Jack's Mother in Into the Woods, and Aggie in A Catered Affair with her beloved Torrance Theatre Company. Also a company member of Little Fish Theatre in San Pedro, favorite roles include Mattie in A Southern Exposure, Faye Nettles in The Sugar Bean Sisters, and Connie in Ladies Foursome.
Cindy's television and web-series credits include Loosely Exactly Nicole, In His Favor, Hollywood and Highland, and commercials for Consumer Cellular, Omaha Steaks, Go Daddy, Credit One, and Tophatter. She is also a popular stand-up comic who has performed all over L.A., including The Ice House, The Comedy Store, and performs weekly at Flappers Burbank. Her award-winning adult, clean comedy is a club favorite and called, "… a breath of fresh air." She especially loves headlining for fundraisers, and has been blessed to work alongside Fritz Coleman, Drew Lynch and Wendy Liebman (both from America's Got Talent), Craig "Lovemaster" Shoemaker, Jimmy Brogan, and Arden Myrin.
By day, Cindy has shifted from directing/choreographing children's musicals to teaching acting and improve to children in an afterschool program in the South Bay called The Actor's Place, and to adults through Torrance Theatre Company. She is grateful for all she learned studying improv with The Groundlings, acting with Dee Wallace Stone and Wendell Burton, singing with Annette Warren Smith, and dancing with Rick Sullivant and is only too happy to pass all that love and education on. A little fun fact, back in the 80s, Cindy was called the Game Show Queen for winning BIG on $25,000 Pyramid and Super Password, which led to a brief stint as a professional "contestant" for game show pilots! She is represented by Mavrick Artists Agency.
PAULA KELLEY/ “SURVIVOR MAMA”
Originally from Boston, Paula Kelley studied theater arts at Bridgewater State University, voice -privately (focusing on opera), and piano at the South Shore Conservatory of Music. When she wasn’t on the stage acting, she was singing and playing keyboards in the rock band FarrenHeit, releasing an album on Warner Bros. Records, and often opening live concerts for Aerosmith.
Paula moved to California to pursue a music career, but never lost her love for acting and, after taking a break to raise a son, is fully dedicated to acting. Some of her most notable theater roles to date have been portraying Momma Rose in Gypsy, Velma in Chicago, Pitti-Sing in The Mikado, Lily Garland in On the Twentieth Century, and Belle Poitrine in Little Me. Paula also directed A Very Special Holiday Special and It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play for Surf City Theatre Co. in Hermosa Beach.
Paula studies with Rick Walters at the Theatrecraft Playhouse in Los Angeles, and is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA, working part-time at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation. She is also the Artistic Director for The Notables, a musical troupe in El Segundo. For additional credits, please see: www.IMDb.me/paulakelley
TRAVIS/VOICE OF “THE PRODUCER”
Travis, who goes professionally by just the one name, provides the “Voice of the Producer,” an unseen character that drives the plot in “Hot Flashin’”. A noted voice-over artist, Travis has performed on literally thousands of commercials, corporate videos, training presentations, documentaries, and internet multimedia productions.
Travis’s voice-over projects have included commercials for Disney and the Dish Network, a “Making Of” video for the movie “Blades of Glory,” and a Los Angeles Emmy Award-winning educational series which aired on PBS stations. He also voiced commercials for Cox Communications and The Orange County Performing Arts Center.
Travis has narrated the online interactive tour of Walt Disney Concert Hall for the Los Angeles Philharmonic; literally hundreds of training programs for the Los Angeles Fire Department, Honda, Kia, Mercedes, and Acura; Internet education programs for Honda; promotional programs for Acura; and a retrospective of the Bob Hope Desert Classic for the USA Network, among many others. He has also provided vocal narration for Audio Description projects produced for the visually impaired – these include many well-known film titles from Disney, Paramount, and Fox Studios.
Documentary films which feature Travis’s narration include dozens of award-winning productions, such as "America's 58 National Parks” for Questar Entertainment (which aired on PBS stations;) the award winning "Crows of the Desert," the Emmy Award- winning PBS doc "Seeing Stars in Indiana;" "OR-7-the Journey;" various projects for Google Earth's “Oceans” project; and other docs entitled “Island of the Great White Shark,” “History of the Coronado Bay Bridge,” “Rockingham – The Road to Peace,” “In Search of Ambrosio Gonzales,” and many more.
ABOUT THE CREATORS
TOM PERGOLA/MUSIC SUPERVISOR/SONGWRITER
Tom Pergola, the music supervisor behind the new hit musical “Hot Flashin’”, wrote 13 original new songs that are featured within the show. Previously, Tom played guitar for legendary singer/entertainer Charo for many years, and earlier, he performed as a member of the iconic 60’s, New York rock band “The Pilgrims” – a group that had been signed by Mercury Records.
Tom was the producer and co-writer of "The Tom Pergola Project" music release, and has had several hits on the charts, as well as the #1 R&B hit "Sweet And Mellow." His album also made # 1 best-selling album in two categories.
As leader, guitar player, songwriter, and producer of his current band, “Burn,” Tom was introduced to Mark Maverick, the owner of indie 104.com a worldwide internet radio station. The all format station has over eight million listeners, with over two hundred thousand listeners per hour, and is considered by the industry as being “Bigger than any FM station.” 104.com has been voted "Station Of The Year" for several years by The New Music Awards in Hollywood.
After Mark Maverick played three of “Burn's” songs on 104.com during the course of just one day, Tom’s song "Come Back" rapidly became the number one most requested song in the history of that station. “Come Back” hit number one on 104.com’s charts, where it stayed for months – “Burn’s” other songs followed closely behind.
Tom was also co-writer and producer of four songs that appeared on the Ricky Bell album “Ricardo Campana.” Ricky Bell was one of the singers that had previously performed in the groups New Edition, and Bell Biv De Voe.
In 2009, Tom granted Sirius Satellite Radio DJ Larry Flick in New York an exclusive to play one of “Burn's” songs – the song played worldwide along with all the other top hits at the time. More recently, Fox Radio played three of “Burn's” songs on over 262 of their FM stations, in addition to stations’ heard across parts of Canada and Europe.
DAN BERKOWITZ/DIRECTOR
Dan Berkowitz, Director of “Hot Flashin’,” has produced and/or directed more than 75 plays and musicals during his career, and more than 150 cabaret revues. His directing credits include the East Coast premiere of Tennessee Williams’s The Eccentricities of a Nightingale; the American premiere of Lawrence Durrell’s An Irish Faustus; and many world premieres, including, in Los Angeles, Dale Griffiths Stamos’s Out of the Rubble starring Barbara Bain and D. B. Sweeney; and Catherine Pelonero’s Another Effing Family Drama, chosen Best of the Hollywood Fringe.
Dan is also a playwright whose work has been produced off-Broadway, at major regionals, and in venues across the US and Canada. His original works include the popular revue A… My Name Is Still Alice, and There’s No Place Like Hollywood!, nominated for LA’s Ovation Award for Best Musical.
Additionally, Dan is Co-Chair of The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP); a Councilmember of The Dramatists Guild of America; and a script and production consultant. For more info, see: http://danberkowitz.com.
GARY THOMAS/CHOREOGRAPHER
“Hot Flashin’s” Choreographer Gary Thomas’s career has been a blend of both being in the spotlight, and also creating it for others. With a background in theatre and dance, Gary has traveled the world with Disney, Celebrity Cruise Lines, and via live shows performed in Las Vegas, Tokyo, & Shanghai.
Gary’s performer credits include: West Side Story, 42nd St, Guys & Dolls, Oklahoma, and Legends in Concert.
Today, Gary spends much of his time producing, directing, and choreographing a wide range of theatre shows, industrials, club openings, product launches, and corporate events. His production credits include: Choreographer/Music Editor for Bite, a Vampire Rock Show (Stratosphere, Las Vegas); and Director/Choreographer for the Ooh La La Burlesque Dance Show (Paris Hotel, Las Vegas). His corporate clients have included: Wahl, General Motors, Playboy, and Sprint.
In Fall 2018, Gary directing the world debut of Blood Rock: The Musical, which enjoyed a successful run at The Odyssey Theatre. See: www.garythomasentertainment.com
