The Public Theater will continue the 2011-2012 Public Forum season in February with a night of conversation and songs featuring Stew, Heidi Rodewald and Michael Cerveris. This Public Forum event will coincide with the new musical, The Total Bent, premiering in February as part of the Public Lab series. This intimate evening featuring three great singer-songwriters will take place on Monday, February 27 at 9:30 p.m. at Joe’s Pub. Member tickets, priced at $15, are on sale now. Single tickets, priced at $20, go on sale Thursday, January 26.
Making a triumphant return to Joe's Pub, Stew and Heidi Rodewald will perform songs from their new musical The Total Bent. They will be joined by Michael Cerveris (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Sweeney Todd, and the upcoming Broadway revival of Evita) for a provocative conversation about life in a recording studio and what happens when the worlds of theater and rock collide.
Stew and Heidi Rodewald team up with director Joanna Settle for The Total Bent, a new musical about a black gospel prodigy from down South and a white music producer from South London who meet in a recording studio just south of the Twilight Zone, as they both desperately seek their own versions of transcendence, salvation, and a hit record. Divine inspiration, fantastical visions, and one legendary music-producer father frame this electrifying new musical about the complicated space between the sacred and the profane. The Total Bent runs Tuesday, February 14 through Sunday, March 4. Tickets to The Total Bent are $15 and are on sale now.
The Total Bent complete cast features Kenny Brawner (Deacon), Eddie R. Brown III (Abee), David Cale (Byron), Vondie Curtis-Hall (Joe Roy), Harriett D. Foy (Your Imaginary Friend), William Jackson Harper (Marty Boy), Damian Lemar Hudson (Deacon), and Julian Rozzell (Andrew).
The Total Bent features scenic design by Andrew Lieberman; costume design by Gabriel Berry; lighting design by Adam Silverman; and sound design by Obadiah Eaves and ACME Sound Partners.
THE PUBLIC FORUM is a high-profile series of lectures, debates, and conversations, now in its second season. Curated by Jeremy McCarter, the Forum features leading voices in politics, media, and the arts. Alec Baldwin, Anne Hathaway, Cynthia Nixon, Michael Stuhlbarg, Sam Waterston, and NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman have hosted its programs, which have featured the insights of Kurt Andersen, Carl Bernstein, David Brooks, Arianna Huffington, Bill Irwin, Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks, Francine Prose, Stephen Sondheim, and young veterans of the war in Afghanistan – plus performances by Anne Hathaway and Michael Cerveris, among others.
