FILM
MUSICAL CHAIRS (PG-13)
ONE NIGHT ONLY!: FRIDAY, 3/22 at 7PM
Starring: Leah Pipes, E.J. Bonilla and Priscilla Lopez
Directed by: Susan Seidelman RUNTIME: 1 hour 40 minutes
SUPPORT DISABILITY AWARENESS by attending the one-night-only screening of Susan Seidelman's 2011 film "MUSICAL CHAIRS" at The Palace!
MUSICAL CHAIRS, the latest film from renowned director Susan Seidelman (Desperately Seeking Susan), is a unique blend of dance, drama, and romance. MUSICAL CHAIRS stars newcomers Leah Pipes and E.J. Bonilla as a pair of unlikely lovers in contemporary New York City who must face a number of challenges, both separately and together, before finding one another--and themselves.
The critically acclaimed film was just nominated for the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film – Limited Release for its celebration of cultural, physical and gender diversity. Also starring Tony-winner Priscilla Lopez, Jaime Tirelli, Laverne Cox, Morgan Spector, Auti Angel, Jerome Preston Bates, Nelson R. Landrieu, and Angelic Zambrana, MUSICAL CHAIRS was produced by Janet Carrus and Joey Dedio.
Set against the exciting backdrop of competitive ballroom dancing, MUSICAL CHAIRS is about Armando (Bonilla) a Bronx-bred Latino who aspires to be a dancer but whose only way in is as a handyman at a Manhattan dance studio, and Mia (Pipes), an Upper East Side princess who is the studio's star performer. Though worlds apart, their shared passion for dance promises to bring them together until a tragic accident changes Mia's life forever, and she finds herself wheelchair-bound at a rehab facility, with her dreams of a dance career shattered. Fortunately, Armando has enough dreams for both of them and, when he hears about a wheelchair ballroom dance competition that will soon be held in NY, he sees a way to return something to Mia that she thinks is lost forever. At first she is reluctant--wheelchair dancing, though highly popular overseas, is something she never even knew existed. But, with the help of several other residents at the rehab center, Armando organizes an intense training program that will bring them all center stage and in the spotlight. The prize is irrelevant; what they really stand to win back is their zest for life.
It was producer Carrus’s, long active in charities benefitting the disabled, and herself an ardent ballroom dance enthusiast, who first had the idea of building a film around the phenomenon of wheelchair ballroom dancing, an activity long popular in Europe and Asia, but which is only now developing a wider following in the United States.
About the film, which features both disabled and able-bodied performers in its rousing dance scenes, Carrus says, “Susan has succeeded in conveying the struggles we all face, both able-bodied and disabled, making our way, whether through life or on the dance floor. She has a real talent for embracing people in all their diversity and making them real, believable, and acceptable.”
Shot exclusively in NYC, producer Janet Carrus will be here at the Palace to introduce her film and conduct a Q&A following the screening.
