BEST-LOVED LOONEY TUNES TO BE ACCOMPANIED BY LIVE ORCHESTRA
IN OREGON PREMIERE OF BUGS BUNNY ON BROADWAY
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Portland, Ore. … The show that won a "four carrots, highest rating!" review from Newsday, Bugs Bunny on Broadway, will have its Oregon premiere with the Oregon Symphony on Sunday, June 2, at 2 and 7 p.m. at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Bugs Bunny will star in a number of classically scored Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes projected onto the big screen above the orchestra, which will be conducted by the creator of Bugs Bunny on Broadway, Emmy Award winner George Daugherty.

Called "Hilarious" by the New York Times, Bugs Bunny on Broadway will feature some of the most popular and enduring of the Warner Brothers cartoons, which include musical themes by Rossini, Strauss, Wagner, Tchaikovsky and more adapted by composers Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn. The concert will include hits like "What's Opera, Doc," based upon music from "The Flying Dutchman," "Die Walkure," "Siegfried," "Gotterdammerung" and "Tannhauser." "The Rabbit of Seville" turns the Overture of Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" into an animated burlesque, and "A Corny Concerto" teams Johann Strauss with Elmer Fudd.

Since its creation in 1990, "Bugs Bunny On Broadway" has seen sold out performances on Broadway, at Moscow's Kremlin Palace, the Sydney Opera House, London's Royal Festival Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and at the Hollywood Bowl. "The remarkable thing" Daugherty noted, "was the make-up of the audience. We had imagined that we had a nice piece of family entertainment, but it turned out that 85 percent of our audience were raving adult Bugs Bunny fanatics. It was phenomenal, like 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' or something, with people coming in costume, wearing rabbit ears."

Tickets range from $25 to $69, are half price for kids 12 and under and may be purchased at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office (923 S.W. Washington), Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or charged by phone at 503-228-1353 or (800) 228-7343. Tickets also may be purchased at all Ticketmaster outlets (503-790-ARTS) or through Ticketmaster On-line, via the Symphony's Web site at www.orsymphony.org. Service fees may apply.

George Daugherty

George Daugherty's 25-year conducting career has included appearances with the world's leading orchestras, ballet companies and opera houses. Daugherty is also an Emmy Award-winning creator whose professional profile includes major credits as a director, writer and producer for television, film, innovative and unique concerts and the live theater.

Daugherty is a frequent conductor of The San Francisco Symphony and in 2000 created and conducted the SFS's new Christmas concert production (slated to become an annual event.) In January, he appeared with the orchestra in Davies Hall for two gala performances with narrator/author Amy Tan, in a newly conceived concert to celebrate Chinese New Year and the city's rich Chinese community and heritage. He is also collaborating with SFS Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, serving as executive producer and creative director of The San Francisco Symphony's New Family Concerts television project. During the 2001 "Summer in the City" series, he conducted the SFS twice in Davies Hall, plus the orchestra's annual appearances at Stern Grove, Golden Gate Park's Sharon Meadow and July 4 at Shoreline (where he conducted for blues legend Etta James with the SFS.)

As a director, writer and producer of music-based television programs, Daugherty and producing partner David Wong created and produced a major ABC Television Network project, a primetime animation-and-live action production of Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf," which he created, co-wrote and directed (and for which he conducted the score with The Utah Symphony.) "Peter and the Wolf" premiered on the network at Christmas time 1995 and starred Lloyd Bridged, Kirstie Alley and Ross Malinger, along with new characters by legendary Warner Bros. animation director Chuck Jones. The production - and Daugherty and Wong - earned a coveted Emmy Award on September 7, 1996 when "Peter and the Wolf" was named Outstanding Primetime Children's Television Program.

In 1990, Daugherty created, directed and conducted the hit Broadway musical Bugs Bunny on Broadway, a live-orchestra-and-film stage production which sold out its extended run at New York's Gershwin theater on Broadway, and has since played to critical acclaim and sold-out houses in three consecutive Los Angeles engagements, as well as at Washington D.C.'s Wolftrap, Philadelphia Orchestra's Mann Music Center, Detroit's Meadowbrook, Cleveland Orchestra's Blossom Festival, The New York Philharmonic's Saratoga Center for the Performing Arts, Pittsburg Symphony's Heinz Hall and in Vancouver, Denver, Detroit, Chicago, San Diego, Orange County and elsewhere. Bugs Bunny on Broadway embarked on a world-wide concert tour in 1996 with an international (and sold-out) one week engagement at the famed Sydney Opera House in Australia, and subsequent international performances in London, Mexico City, Moscow, and Japan.