Posted July 12, 2009

Schenectady, NY- Cyndi Lauper and Rosie O’Donnell will perform at Proctors on Tuesday, August 11 at 8 P.M.

The legendary performance of Grammy Award winner Cyndi Lauper will be paired with the stand-up comedy of Emmy Award winning Rosie O’Donnell for a night of unforgettable entertainment.

Cyndi Lauper burst onto the world stage as the quintessential girl who wants to have fun. After more than 20 sterling years and global record sales in excess of 25 million, she has proven that she has the heart and soul to keep her legion of fans compelled by her every creative move. With her 2008 collection "Bring Ya To The Brink," Cyndi firmly asserts her position as one of the most exciting recording artists of this generation.

In 1985, Cyndi won a Grammy award for Best New Artist and became the first artist in history to have five top 10 singles from a debut album. Along the way, she continually won accolades as a singer, musician, actor and writer. She has been nominated for 13 Grammy Awards, 2 Emmy Awards, 2 American Music Awards, 7 American Video Awards and 18 MTV awards.

As an actor, Cyndi has appeared in such motion pictures as Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, Life With Mikey, Off and Running and Vibes. Perhaps most notable has been her acclaimed performance opposite Christopher Walken in The Opportunist. In 2006, Cyndi made her Broadway debut as Jenny in The Threepenny Opera.

In television, Cyndi has proven her screen prowess in Queer as Folk (2005), Live and Kicking and Noel's House Party (both for the BBC), and her Emmy Award winning performance (Outstanding Guest Performance in a Comedy Series) as Marianne Lugasso on Mad About You (1994-99). Cyndi has also lent her talents to other film and TV projects, voicing animated projects for Disney and The Simpsons as well as scoring soundtracks for the films Off and Running and Private Property and the title song for Nick Cassavete's Unhook The Stars.

When she's not writing and performing, Cyndi has also developed her skills as a director, frequently working at the helm of her music video clips.

A tireless crusader for children, Rosie O’Donnell established the “Rosie’s For All Kids Foundation,” in 1997. Since its inception, the foundation has raised more than $60 million and awarded more than $27 million dollars in grants to over 1,400 child-related non-profit organizations to benefit low-income families across the country. In 2005, she established a fund to provide $3 million dollars to children and families displaced by Katrina, which, among other projects built the first-ever childcare facility in a FEMA housing site, at Renaissance Village in Louisiana. In 2003, she established “Rosie’s Broadway Kids,” a program that provides free in school, after-school and summer instruction in musical theater to the public school children of New York. Ms. O’Donnell was last seen as moderator on the tenth season of ABC’s “The View.” In October of 2007, she released her second book called Celebrity Detox, which became her second New York Times Bestseller. She also reprised her role as ‘Dawn Budge’ in FX’s acclaimed series “Nip/Tuck.” Rosie’s third book, Crafty U was published by Simon & Schuster and released on April 8, 2008. Rosie performed in a limited engagement of No, No Nanette”on Broadway. Rosie’s most recent project is the Lifetime Original Film, America, which she executive co-produced, co-wrote and starred in.

In 2004, Rosie and Kelli O'Donnell launched R Family Vacations; a gay, lesbian, straight, young and old family cruises to the Caribbean. HBO aired a documentary, All Aboard Rosie’s Family Cruise, directed by Emmy nominee Shari Cookson. The HBO documentary garnered three Emmy Award nominations and chronicled this historic undertaking, offering a glimpse of a society shaped by a truly diverse, inclusive network of families.

For six years, Rosie O’Donnell was host and executive producer of the critically acclaimed and Emmy Award winning nationally syndicated talk/variety series The Rosie O’Donnell Show. In her first season on the air, she won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host. She continued her success for five consecutive seasons by winning Daytime Emmy’s for both Outstanding Talk Show Host and Outstanding Talk Show. She also won a Primetime Emmy for The 52nd Annual Tony Awards.

Ms. O’Donnell made her dramatic television debut starring in CBS’s Hallmark Hall of Fame production, Riding the Bus with My Sister, directed by Angelica Huston and co-starring Andie MacDowell. Ms. O’Donnell has made guest appearances on a number of television series including: Will and Grace, All My Children, Suddenly Susan, Spin City, Sesame Street, The Nanny, The Larry Sanders Show and a three arc episode on Showtime’s acclaimed hit, Queer as Folk. She also hosted Nickelodeon’s “Kids Choice Awards” from 1997 – 2003.

Ms. O’Donnell also made a name for herself in movies. She made her motion picture debut in Penny Marshall’s 1992 smash film A League of Their Own starring opposite Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Madonna. She also starred on the big screen in Sleepless in Seattle, Another Stakeout, The Flintstones, Exit To Eden and was the voice of “Turk” in Walt Disney’s full-length animated motion picture Tarzan.

In April 1997, Warner Books published Kids Are Punny, a best-selling collection of her favorite jokes sent to the show by kids, with all proceeds going to her “Rosie’s For All Kids Foundation.” Ms. O’Donnell also shared her gift for writing with the release of her book Find Me in April 2002, which reached number two on The New York Times Bestseller List. In her premiere endeavor as an author she offered a powerful account of an experience that changed her life.

Following her heart to the stage, the multi-talented Ms. O’Donnell appeared on Broadway in 1994, when she starred as ‘Rizzo’ in Tommy Tune’s revival of Grease. In 2001, she returned to Broadway to star as ‘The Cat in the Hat’ in Seussical. In 2004, Ms. O’Donnell combined her love of Broadway with 80’s pop musical sensation, Boy George and produced the musical, Taboo, based on his life.

Tickets for Cyndi Lauper and Rosie O’Donnell at Proctors on Tuesday, August 11 at 8 P.M. are $50 $45 $40 and $20. Tickets are available at Proctors Box Office, (518) 346-6204, or online at proctors.org. This performance is sponsored by Ambition Restaurant.

Significant discounts on tickets are available for groups of 20 or more. A listing of shows and pricing may be found on proctors.org/group_sales or by contacting Proctors Group Sales at 518-382-3884 ext. 139.

This performance is sponsored, in part, by The New York State Council on The Arts, a state agency.

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