Luncheon this week...

We can hope our guest speaker this month will share some tidbits about the stage with us....

From The Theatre Zone in Naples

Mark Danni – Producing Artistic Director and Board of Directors Mark Danni is one of the most well rounded people in the entertainment business. His directing, music directing and drumming skills make him a sought after commodity in the theatre world. After starting his New York City career as a drummer on Broadway for shows such as Chicago (starring Jasmine Guy, Jennifer Holiday, Vicky Lewis and Alan Thicke) Grand Hotel (starring Michael Jeter, Rex Smith and Jane Krakowski), Miss Saigon (starring Lea Salonga and Hinton Battle), Les Miserables (starring Colm Wilkinson, Ricky Martin, Andrea McArdle and Laurie Beechman), Joseph…Dreamcoat (starring Michael Damian), Annie Get Your Gun (starring Bernadette Peters and Tom Wolpat) and Nunsense, he quickly moved into the conductor’s chair and conducted the national tours of Barnum and Les Miserables. During his 14 years in New York, he also toured with the shows The Phantom Of The Opera, 42nd Street (starring Gretchen Wyler and Marcia Lewis), the 25th anniversary tour of Hair (directed by James Rado and Galt McDermott), Evita, Les Miserables (starring Sutton Foster) and Fame as the drummer and/or percussionist. Regionally, he was the conductor of A Little Night Music at the Signature Theatre in Washington, D.C., where he also worked on the Studio Theatre’s production of Falsettoland. Quickly becoming a favorite in D.C., he was then asked to play drums for Al Gore’s Innaugural Gala in 1993, A Taste of Tennessee, starring Dixie Carter and Gary Morris. Directing shows became inevitable for someone as creative as Mark. While conducting the tour of Les Miserables, he soon became a favorite conductor for many of the cast members and the director of the show started teaching him the ropes of directing, encouraging him to start directing himself. That’s just what Mark did. When he left the road, he started directing anywhere he could and even directed a few Off-Broadway productions. Some of those include the critically acclaimed play, Aggravation, and the musical workshop of What Would Esther Williams Do In A Situation Like This? (starring Richard Heard). After leaving New York, Mark continued directing in Southwest Florida, and became the Founding Artistic Director of TheatreZone Inc., a professional theatre company in Naples, Florida where he has directed such celebrities as Andrea McArdle (Broadway’s original Annie), Donna McKechnie (A Chorus Line), Georgia Engel (Mary Tyler Moore Show), Eddie Mekka (Laverne & Shirley), Gary Sandy (WKRP In Cincinnati), and many more.  While Mark maintains a heavy directing schedule, he is still in demand as a conductor and drummer. At Sandy Duncan’s request, Mark toured through the state of Florida with her show, Sandy Duncan: celebrates Broadway, and has also played with the Naples Philharmonic. Born and raised in Buffalo, NY, Mark attended Baldwin-Wallace University in Cleveland, OH. He is a trained director, conductor and percussionist whose teachers include Jack Lee, Eric Schaeffer, Dwight Oltman, Donald Schleicher, Rick Holms and Karen Carpenter. In the fall of 2011 Mark was awarded the United Arts Council’s Stars In The Arts Award and in the spring of 2013 luxury lifestyle magazine Naples Illustrated polled the community and nominated TheatreZone founder Mark Danni. Mark was one of 12 worthy gentlemen to compete to be one of the seven finalists who are to be featured on the pages of the September 2013 issue of Naples Illustrated.