Album Notes

CRAIG RUBANO began his professional theatrical career as a pig when composer Charles Strouse cast him as "Wilbur" in the New York premiere of Charlotte's Web: The Musical.

Craig made his Broadway debut as young lover Marius Pontmercy in Les Misérables, performing the role over 700 times. Craig was an original Broadway cast member of Frank Wildhorn's Tony & Grammy Award-nominated The Scarlet Pimpernel (Atlantic Records) and Pimpernel II (Pimp. Encore, Atlantic Records).

He played Algy Moncrieff in the first New York revival of Ernest in Love; Dorian in Dorian Gray; and Zeppo Marx in the Goodspeed Opera House's hit revival of Animal Crackers. He performed for a hometown, nightly audience of ten thousand at the St. Louis Muny's An Evening of Richard Rodgers; and he played murderer Winston Moseley in the National Music Theater Conference's development of The Screams of Kitty Genovese at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and then at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre's Festival of New Musicals. Craig played Dennis (the Monster) in a VT Crossroads production of Stefania de Kenessey's comic opera The Monster Bed.



Craig's concert experience began a cappella. As a member of singing groups Redhot & Blue and, following in Cole Porter's footsteps, The Whiffenpoofs, he performed in 37 US states and 13 foreign countries. Highlights included Carnegie Hall's centennial salute to Cole Porter; a Bangkok debut of lovesongs written by the King of Thailand; a stint at Copenhägen's Tivoli Gardens; and a command performance in Monte Carlo for Prince Albert of Monaco.

As a solo artist, he joined the Philip Glass Ensemble in Greece for Monsters of Grace, Glass' 3-D digital opera collaboration with Robert Wilson; he sang in Lyon for the Orchestre National de Lyon's Broadway Parade; he premiered as Edmund in Narnia Suite at Avery Fisher Hall with The Little Orchestra Society; he soloed in the Brooklyn Academy of Music's tribute to Stephen Sondheim; and he joined Bernadette Peters for her Carnegie Hall solo debut and its Grammy-nominated live album (Angel Records).

Craig has co-starred with ABC Daytime's Catherine Hickland (OLTL) in four NYC nightclub engagements and two Disney World Super Soap Weekend finales; along with Marsh Hanson, they released Sincerely, Broadway (Baby Blues Records).
Craig's debut solo recording Finishing the Act: Act One Finales from Broadway (AF Records) was the MAC Award-winning Recording of the Year. The NY Post''s Chip Defaa hailed Craig's "resounding legit voice," on an "impeccably produced, gloriously orchestrated CD."

Stephen Holden of the New York Times wrote of the subsequent Finishing the Act concert show, "Craig Rubano has an intelligence and wit to match his robust baritone...an exceptionally well-conceived cabaret debut," awarding the show a star. Finishing the Act continues to be booked across the country and abroad.

Craig received a Back Stage Bistro Award and a MAC Award for Outstanding Vocals.

He performed "Give My Regards to Broadway" on the CUNY-TV program New York in Song, whose video sale benefits the CSFA Scholarship Fund aiding children of 9/11 victims; and he soloed on the MAC Award-winning Holiday CD 'Tis the Season (Harbinger Records).

Craig has been a frequent guest at the Mabel Mercer Foundation's Cabaret Conventions: East Hampton (The Guild Hall), Palm Springs' Annenburg Theater, San Francisco's Herbst Theater, Philadelphia's Prince Music Center, Chicago's Empire Room at the Palmer House Hotel, London's Greenwich Theatre and five years in NYC at The Town Hall.

Craig appeared as a soloist in the 1964 edition of The Town Hall's Broadway by the Year series (Harbinger Records).

In addition to Finishing the Act, Craig's touring concert shows are: Something Wonderful: Celebrating Richard Rodgers (with Heather Mac Rae, Mark Nadler, and KT Sullivan); The Night They Invented Champagne: Operettas and the Musicals They Inspired (with Mark Nadler and KT Sullivan); and solo shows Stepping into Love: Harold Arlen in the Thirties; Change Partners: Life's a Dance, which debuted at the Algonquin Hotel's Oak Room; and At Long Last Love: A Cole Porter Evening, which debuted at the Cafe Carlyle.

Craig's second solo album, Change Partners (Prosody Records) was released in February 2005.

A summa cum laude Yale University graduate, Craig earned a M.A. as a Marjorie Hope Nicholson Fellow in the Humanities at Columbia University.


For updates, visit www.CraigRubano.com