An informal read-through of the first act of a new musical, Tangled Webs, took place on Friday December 12th, in Manhattan. The reading starred Mary Poppins star Rebecca Luker.
The musical is about an elegant Park Avenue woman (played in the read-through by Rebecca Luker) who's lost her husband and starts her life over by going to work at a producer's office. She discovers a young writer's work that she feels passionate about, and she will stop at nothing to get the show to the Broadway stage.
The music is by Skip Kennon. Kennon's musical Herringbone just had a fall 2008 run at Princeton's McCarter Theater starring B.D. Wong and directed by Roger Rees; he first worked with Rebecca Luker when she played the female lead in Kennon's musical Time and Again at the Old Globe in San Diego).
The lyricist is Ellen Schwartz (The Trapped Family Singers, the Mae West musical Come Up and See Me).
The bookwriter is Bill Connington, who just won awards for his show ZOMBIE at the N.Y. Fringe Festival this past summer.
The musical is being adapted from a story called "WebCast" by Fred Landau (who was the bookwriter on Kennon's musical version of The Last Starfighter).
In addition to Rebecca Luker, the characters at the read-through were read by Steve Berger (Broadway's Pajama Game and Into the Woods), Jan Leigh Herndon (Broadway's La Cage Aux Folles and A Chorus Line), Jesse JP Johnson (Altar Boyz at New World Stages, Broadway's Glory Days), Neal Mayer (Forbidden Broadway, Broadway's Les Miserables), Sean Montgomery (The Last Starfighter at NYMF), Catherine Remmert (also in Kennon's musical of The Last Starfighter), Leenya Rideout (Broadway's Company, Cyrano de Bergerac and Cabaret), and Ric Ryder (Broadway's Blood Brothers, Grease and the Luker-Bierko Music Man revival).
Songs in the read-through included "Not Young" (sung by Rebecca Luker), "You Never Know" (Steve Berger, Jesse JP Johnson and company), "My Song" (Jesse JP Johnson), "My World Began This Morning" (Ric Ryder), "Not Young - Reprise" (Rebecca Luker), "I Heard His Music" (Rebecca Luker), "No Time for Love" (Leenya Rideout with Ric Ryder and company), "What Else Did You Expect?" (Neal Mayer, Jesse JP Johnson, Ric Ryder, Rebecca Luker, Leenya Rideout). Rebecca Luker also performed two of her character's solo numbers from Act II, "Flying" and "I'll Seal it with a Kiss."
Photo by Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.
