Nightclub Cantata
Recording/filming session for HERE YOU COME AGAIN
Check me out on bass, fiddle and backup vocals for Tricia Paolucccio’s stunning rendition of Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again”
Concert presentation: In The Shade, February 25
“In The Shade” is a new musical with music by Tom Laverack and book & lyrics by Daniel Egger. It explores the life of poet and author Robert Lowell through the lives of his three wives: Jean Stafford, Caroline Blackwood, and Elizabeth Hardwick (all writers as well). I am beyond delighted to be performing this piece with two of my favorite vocal collaborators: Courtney Bassett and Caroline Strange.
February 25 (Tuesday) at 7pm, The Green Room 42. Get tickets!
Solo (with guests) Concert at Green Room 42! 9/30 @ 9:30!
AGING GRACELESSLY: PEARL RHEIN TURNS 39
On Sep 30, 2021, I gave a concert at Green Room 42 featuring several guests singing my music (and one cover). Click on the video to see the playlist!
July 8, 2021: Opened for Rebecca Hart and The Wrong Band at The Kraine Theater (vaxxed show!)
On Thursday, July 8, I for Rebecca Hart and The Wrong Band for her annual Not My Birthday Show at The Kraine Theater. It was a fully-vaxxed show, and my first time singing my songs in front of live human faces since 2019!
I did a podcast! "Musicals With Cheese #143 - Violet (feat. Pearl Rhein)"
Baby’s first podcast! The cheeseballs over at Musicals with Cheese invited me to come on their podcast and I’m so glad I said yes. I chose the musical we discussed: “Violet” by Janeane Tesori and Brian Crawley. We had a blast talking about what makes this musical so great (banjo! Female characters with sexual agency!).
Necromancers of the Public Domain presents: The Periodical Cicada
Necromancers of the Public Domain is the brain baby of multi-hyphenate creator @ayun_halliday. She assigns a bunch of writer-performers an obscure book out of the public domain, we read (some of) it, then we write stuff and share it. It fills my little homeschooled heart. The book for this show was about cicadas in honor of Brood X.
Time stamp:
17:00 “The Lonely Cicada” written and performed by Pearl Rhein
Happy Pride! Queer Joy photo shoot by Shani Hadjian for Ring of Keys + Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids on Playbill.com
I was super tickled to take part in this joyful photo shoot by Shani Hadjian for Ring of Keys in collaboration with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Don’t they take beautiful pictures??
New York Theater Barn presents William Finn's Emerging Writers
When I was a teenager, I learned to sight-read on the piano by having my friends over to sing through Broadway Vocal Selections books. Some of our favorites were “A New Brain” and “Falsettos”, and William Finn has remained one of my absolute favorite Musical Theater composers. So I was wildly excited to take a 10-week lyric-writing workshop with the great Mr. Finn during the pandemic (thanks to the efforts of Maestra to recruit more femmes for the class). I wrote 9 songs (both music and lyrics) in class, and three of them were featured in a virtual concert hosted by New York Theater Barn!
Time stamps:
6:12 - “Get In” (a pop song about riding in cars and coming out)
28:33 - “Antonie van Leeuwenhoek” (a rock song about the father of modern microscopy)
49:13 - “February Friend” (a ballad about the most depressing month)
IGTV Post - Cabaret Selftapestravaganza
I made a self-tape for the role of the Emcee in a COVID-thwarted production of “Cabaret”. Skip to 1:56 for “If You Could See Her Through My Eyes” or to 3:31 for “I Don’t Care Much”.
"Little Women" at Dallas Theater Center, Jan - Feb 2020
“Little Women” (adapted by Kate Hamill & directed by Sarah Rasmussen) finished its critically-acclaimed run at the Dallas Theater Center on Feb 28, 2020.
The production was scheduled to transfer to The Old Globe in March, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was indefinitely postponed. I feel incredibly lucky to have gotten to do it once!
"Little Women" by Kate Hamill, co-pro between Dallas Theater Center & The Old Globe
Kate Hamill’s new adaptation of “Little Women” is a funny, dynamic examination of the feminism and social activism that has been present in the novel since its publication 150 years ago. I am so grateful to be playing JO MARCH, a formative fictional creation for me since I was about 7, as the queer pioneer I have always felt her to be. And in a co-production between two of the nation’s leading regional theaters!
Dallas Theater Center Feb 7 - 29
The Old Globe iMarch 14 - April 19.
Brand-new song premiered in RING OF KEYS' "Queering the Canon" concert at Joe's Pub!
RING OF KEYS is a national network of queer women and TGNC professional artists working in musical theatre. Their second annual birthday fundraiser concert, “Queering the Canon”, was on Feb 16 at Joe’s Pub!
Each queer songwriter was assigned a “classic” musical theater song and has written their musical response. My song was “The Sadder but Wiser Girl” from The Music Man, and my sex-positive pro-education anthem “Head of the Class” premiered at the concert!
"Duet for Three" reading with Amas Musical Theatre, Nov 21 & 22
“Duet for Three” is a world-premiere musical about Kay Swift, the first woman to fully score a Broadway musical. With a book by David Caudle using Kay’s original music, “Duet for Three” tells the story of her complicated relationships with her husband and lyricist, Paul James; and her lover George Gershwin. Kay Swift was a Juilliard-trained pianist who went on to be a leading expert on Gershwin’s music after his sudden death. I was super tickled to play Kay (and a metric ton of piano music) in this brand-new piece!
Part of Amas Musical Theatre’s “Dare to be Different” Festival.
"Potion Masters" screened at New York's LGBTQ Film Festival!
“Potion Masters”, a dreamy little magical-realism rom-com short I acted in, was screened TWICE as part of NewFest at New York’s LGBTQ Film Festival!
I did a Q&A panel with my co-star Dani Martineck and director Cameron Laventure following both screenings.
Reading of an Ethan Lipton musical with The Civilians!
Sang and played mandolin in a reading of a new piece by Ethan Lipton with The Civilians, about the privatization of public education in America.
"Potion Masters" premiered at Detroit's Trans Stella Film Festival!
Last year I was cast in a dreamy little queer Magical Realism rom-com called “Potion Masters”, which was then selected to screen its world premiere at the Trans Stellar Film Festival in Detroit!!
I'm on TV!!
I recently appeared in Episode #604 of TVLand’s “Younger”, and in the Series 7 Premiere of NBC’s “The Blacklist”. Check out my Videos page to watch the clips!
Recently: Pearl played bass for Erin Markey at Bard Spiegeltent!
DOUBLE TROUBLES
ERIN MARKEY: WET FOOD
AND PETER SMITH: ALONE, AT LAST
“Erin Markey defies expectations you don’t even know you have.”—New York Post
Erin Markey and Peter Smith (from SummerScape 2018’sPeter Pan) invite you into their fantastically weird worlds with a double bill evening of story-driven stand-up and song. Markey’s Wet Food is an intimate musical conversation tackling all the issues. Alone, at last draws on Smith’s flirty, delicious deadpan.
August 10 at 8:30 pm
LOCATION: Fisher Center, Spiegeltent
