Neva Rae Powers

Florence Foster Jenkins
 
Since beginning her career as a teen-ager in The Sound of Music, Neva Rae Powers has enjoyed an international career as a dancer, actor, singer, conductor, director, flutist, choreographer, arts administrator, and teacher. She has performed over sixty roles in regional theatres (The King and I, 42^nd Street, My Fair Lady, It’s a Wonderful Life) off-Broadway shows and the Broadway productions of King of Hearts, Peter Pan, Barnum, and Can-Can. Last season Ms. Powers appeared as Aunt March in the Broadway production’s USA national tour of Little Women. Her most recent NYC appearances were opposite the Broadway legend George S. Irving in the operetta The Chocolate Soldier followed by a sold out concert of Jerome Kern music with Steve Ross at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC).� Included in numerous recital and concert appearances are Weill Recital Hall (NYC), Wigmore Hall (London), Bruno Walter Auditorium (NYC) and the Schubertsaal (Vienna).

As an arts administrator and Artistic Director, Ms. Powers founded Sunflower Hill Productions, a not-for-profit performing arts organization, which presented a summer festival of chamber music, recitals, new play-readings, musical theatre workshops, and full-scale musical productions in Pennsylvania. She has directed and/or choreographed over 40 musicals and revues in Budapest, Vienna, Stuttgart, Norway, D�sseldorf, and the USA. On the high-seas she is the Prod uction Manager for Jean Ann Ryan Productions, one of the largest and most respected full service entertainment production companies in the world today and rated as the “World’s Best” in Cruise Line Entertainment.

As a teacher, Ms. Powers was in the forefront of the musical theatre movement in Vienna in the 1980’s. She and her husband Frank Kubik (whom she met at Vienna’s English Theatre) were early teachers of such musical performers as Andreas Steppan, Julia Stemberger, Nicole Fendesack, Sona MacDonald, and Pia Douwes.

Ms. Powers is a member of Actors Equity Association, a recipient of the Broadway Gypsy Robe (Broadway revival of Can-Can), an Acclaim Award winner for her portrayal of Florence Foster Jenkins in Souvenir at the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati and a graduate of the renowned Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.