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CONTACT: Leigh Allen, Marketing Director
(937) 461-3823, ext. 3112
HUMAN RACE THEATRE COMPANY GIVES VOICE TO "VOICE OF THE CITY," A NEW MUSICAL SET IN O. HENRY'S NEW YORK
DAYTON 'S RESIDENT EQUITY THEATRE LAUNCHES TWO-WEEK MUSICAL THEATRE WORKSHOP OCT. 2
PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS ARE OCT. 16-17 AT LOFT THEATRE
(DAYTON, Ohio) — September 29 — The Human Race Theatre Company's 2006-07 Musical Theatre Workshop program will launch Oct. 2 with the first rehearsal of the new musical, Voice of the City, leading to two Equity staged reading presentations 7 PM Oct. 16-17 at The Loft Theatre in downtown Dayton.
Human Race's commitment to developing new works continues with the workshop of this new O. Henry-inspired romantic musical comedy by Elaine Chelton (music) Kenneth Jones (book and lyrics), alumni of the Tony® Award-honored BMI Musical Theatre Workshop. The collaborators met in the BMI Workshop — an important breeding ground for new musical writers in New York City — and initiated and developed their project there before its first public reading at The York Theatre Company in 2004. Human Race's executive director Kevin Moore invited the writers and their director, Karen Azenberg, to Dayton to test revisions and tackle new changes with a cast comprised of resident Dayton-area performers and guests from New York.
Meegan Midkiff , a graduate of Wright State University's musical theatre program, will play the heroine, Sarah, a New York City typing girl whose expectation of marriage to a farmer from Connecticut is viewed as fantasy by her realistic city friends.
In 1906 Greenwich Village, a world of immigrants and bohemians aware of the changing times, will the community convince Sarah that things can also blossom in the city? An O. Henry twist turns the tables in this tuneful traditional-values, coming-of-tale about grabbing at life rather than sitting around and waiting for it.
“The first time I heard the show I knew it was perfect for our workshop process,” said Human Race Executive Director Kevin Moore. “Sometimes a show just needs a nurturing environment to find its legs. This one is so close, it will be a delight for our audiences to experience its charm and great storytelling.”
"This is a valuable opportunity for us to explore our material in a safe environment, with a company that's passionate about contributing to the future catalog American musical theatre," lyricist-librettist Jones said. "We set out to write a romantic musical comedy fable in the tradition of works by such giants as Rodgers & Hammerstein and Bock & Harnick and others who cared about rich melodies and universal human yearnings. We think there's still room for terms like 'traditional' and 'old-fashioned' in musicals today. We consider Voice of the City the sort of musical nobody writes anymore — but everyone is dying to see."
"The score boasts a variety of flavors, drawing on the backgrounds of the diverse characters," composer Chelton said. "The score ranges from rag to polka to Yiddish lullaby to march."
Sean Michael Flowers serves as musical director for Voice of the City. Sean has music directed a number of workshops and full productions at The Human Race, including Bat Boy, Moby Dick, Weird Romance, and his own musical, Prometheus Dreams.
The cast (in alphabetical order) includes:
Jamie Cordes, Renee Franck-Reed, Scott Hunt, Deanne Lorette, Matt Neal, Katie Pees, David Sherman, Marya Spring, Scott Stoney, Patricia Linhart and Erin Ulman.
The performances will be followed by an audience talkback with the creators. All tickets will be sold at the door of The Loft Theatre as General Admission Tickets at $15 each. Until Oct. 10 a subscription ticket for both shows is available by contacting The Human Race at (937) 461-3823.
The second Human Race Musical Theatre Workshop of the 2006-07 season will be Jan. 22 and 29, 2007, when Kay Bosse (Human Race Resident Artist and recent inductee into the Dayton Theatre Hall of Fame) will become the legendary housewife-turned-poet Anne Sexton in the riveting new chamber musical, The Ambition Bird, by Matthew Sheridan. Winner of a Pulitzer Prize, Anne shattered expectations about what poems and poets and housewives were supposed to be.
VOICE OF THE CITY
ELAINE CHELTON (COMPOSER)
Elaine Chelton was born in Brooklyn and began her piano studies at the age of five. She received her degrees from Queens College. Currently a piano soloist with New York City Ballet, she performs regularly at Lincoln Center. She has also played at the Kennedy Center, the Joyce Theatre and has appeared as a soloist with orchestras in Japan and Russia. Her songs have been performed in many cabarets in New York City. Writing credits include the music and lyrics to the revues Stages (performed at Panache Encore) and A New Voice (performed at Don't Tell Mama). She also penned the music to Oscar's Foibles co-written with lyricist Lila Levant. She is a graduate of The BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop where she met Kenneth Jones and they developed Voice of the City. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild and ASCAP.
KENNETH JONES (LYRICIST/LIBRETTIST)
Kenneth Jones was born in Philadelphia and raised in metropolitan Detroit. He is a graduate of The BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, where he met composer Elaine Chelton, and where pieces of Voice of the City were first heard. His current theatre projects include lyrics for a new darkly comic holiday musical (with BMI Workshop alumnus composer Gerald Stockstill) and a family-friendly Aesop's Fables musical (with Dora Award-nominated Canadian composer Marek Norman). He has been enlisted to write lyrics for a new Broadway-aimed historical musical, Flying Tigers, with book by William Luce and music by Roger Anderson. He lives in New York City, where he is an editor for Playbill.com and a member of the Dramatists Guild.
VOICE OF THE CITY
HISTORY
Voice of the City began as a discussion between composer Elaine Chelton and librettist-lyricist Kenneth Jones when they were members of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. Collaborating with each other for the first time, they were seeking to work on a traditional musical that told a straightforward tale in the Rodgers & Hammerstein tradition. The thinking was, if writers are successful playing by the rules, it's easier to break those rules later on in the collaboration.
Seeking an idea for a show, they pored over stories, fairy tales, newspaper articles and more, and found a couple of O. Henry's gaslight-era New York City stories and decided to blend the two tales about New York women into one musical. Despite creating some compelling songs, they dropped one story and focused on "Springtime a la Carte" (1910), which concerned a Manhattan typing girl named Sarah who is waiting for a farmer to whisk her away from the city. Using the slight tale as a jumping off point, Chelton and Jones invented characters, added plot points, gave Sarah goals beyond merely "waiting," and injected tension and romance. They changed the title to Voice of the City, as it better represented what becomes of Sarah, and how she is influenced by the city folk and urban setting from which she hopes to escape. ("Voice of the City" also happens to be the title of an unrelated O Henry story.)
Pieces of Voice of the City were presented in the BMI Workshop under the guidance of Tony Award winner Maury Yeston and others, and revisions and refinements to the work led to two private Manhattan readings, the involvement of director-choreographer Karen Azenberg and the show's first public Equity reading in the York Theatre Company's Spring 2004 Developmental Reading Series.
More revisions followed the successful reading, leading to the fall 2006 workshop invitation from Human Race Theatre Company executive director Kevin Moore.
THE AMBITION BIRD
Matthew Sheridan is a playwright, composer and lyricist. His play, Unfinished, was a semi-finalist for this year's O'Neill Playwrights Conference, and a finalist for the 2005 Shenandoah International Playwrights Retreat. His musical, The Ambition Bird — for which he wrote book, music and lyrics — was a winner in the Global Search for New Musicals and was presented in the 2005 International Festival of Musical Theatre in Cardiff, Wales as well as the 2003 National Alliance for Musical Theatre festival on Theatre Row in New York City. The show was also featured in the competitive Theatre Resources Unlimited New Voices musicals series.Sheridan's other credits include music and lyrics for Mirabella — produced at Queens Theatre-in-the-Park in Flushing, New York — and music for the film short "Listen," shown on the Independent Film Channel. In addition to several straight one-acts, he recently completed the libretto and score of The Boy Without Fear, a children’s opera. A New York City native, Sheridan is a graduate of the High School of Performing Arts and a Presidential Arts Scholar. He earned a BFA in Music Composition from Purchase College, graduating with honor, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
THE AMBITION BIRD PRODUCTION/DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
2005: Cardiff International Musical Theatre Festival in Wales. Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales.
2003: National Alliance for Musical Theatre's New Musicals Festival. John Houseman Theatre and Douglas Fairbanks Theatre, New York City.
2001: Theatre Resources Unlimited New Voices. 14th Street Y, New York City .
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Founded in 1986, The Human Race Theatre Company presents universal themes that explore the human condition and startle us all into a renewed awareness of ourselves. The company moved to the Metropolitan Arts Center in 1991, taking up residence at The Loft, a 219-seat theatre. In addition to the Loft Series (in collaboration with the Victoria Theatre Association) The Human Race produces for the Fifth Third Broadway Series, the Musical Theatre Workshop series, and special event programming. The Human Race, under the direction of Artistic Director Marsha Hanna and Executive Director Kevin Moore, also maintains educational outreach programs for children and adults, guest artists and artist residencies in area schools, The Muse Machine In-School Tour, Youth Summer Stock and The Human Race Conservatory. The new Caryl D. Philips Creativity Center of The Human Race opened in January 2006 to provide a space for extensive theatre education classes and workshops.