John Rubinstein is one of those actors whose face you'll recognize immediately - he's been on stage and television for more than 30 years - but you may not know his name. Well, let's set things straight.
Rubinstein began his stage career as the titular character in the original Broadway production of Pippin. In the late ‘70s, he played Meredith Baxter's estranged husband on the popular TV melodrama Family. Then he won a Tony for his performance onstage in Children of a Lesser God.
He co-starred with Jack Warden in the series Crazy Like a Fox, turned up in everything from The West Wing to The Love Boat to Friends to Desperate Housewives, and has a feature filmography that includes The Boys From Brazil, 21 Grams and Red Dragon, among others.
The son of legendary concert pianist Arthur Rubinstein, he has also composed and conducted the music for more than 50 TV shows and movies, including Robert Redford's Jeremiah Johnson and The Candidate, and the series China Beach.
The music thing probably explains why Rubinstein is coming to Savannah April 5, to narrate the world premiere of composer Marc Neikrug's Death Cell Memoirs of An Extraterrestrial.
Neikrug's work for violin, piano, clarinet and actor, which is part of the Savannah Music Festival, is being touted as a "comedic chamber work." The SMF's Daniel Hope will play violin, alongside Benny Kim, Tracy Silverman, Philip Dukes, Keith Robinson, Patrick Messina and Simon Crawford-Phillips.
The 8 p.m. concert - part of the SMF's "Daniel Hope and Friends" series - will be at the Lucas Theatre, and will also feature the ensemble of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and String Quartet in C minor Op. 110 by Shostakovich.
Our extensive coverage of the Savannah Music Festival begins with next week's issue. For ticket information, see savannahmusicfestival.org.
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