The New York Musical Festival and Laura Yosowitz, Vital Arts Collaborative are pleased to announce Josh Davis (Beautiful) will play Joseph in THE GOLD, a new musical about one man's fight for love, family and country, with book by Andrea Lepcio and Phil Yosowitz, music and lyrics by Phil Yosowitz, music supervision by Steven Jamail and direction by Spiro Veloudos.
Also featured in the cast are Karis Danish, Steven Grant Douglas, Emily Kron, Adam Maggio, Jenn Malenke, Kevin B. McGlynn and Stephanie Ticas. Rounding out the company are Mick Bleyer, Victoria Castle, Coleman Hemsworth, Mckay Kjar, Douglas McDonnell, Howard Pinhasik, David Rosenberg, Angela Sclafani, Kalli Siringis, and Ryan Speakman.
The design team includes sets and props by Adam Crinson, lighting by Joe Beumer and costumes by Izzy Fields. Jesse Lozano is the music director. Lauren Moriah Stern is the Production Stage Manger and Amy Castro is the Assistant Stage Manager.
The production will play on Monday, August 1 at 8pm, Tuesday, August 2 at 1pm, Thursday, August 4 at 9pm, and Saturday, August 6 at 5pm and 9pm at the The Pearl Theatre, located at 555 West 42nd Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues on the south side of 42nd Street). The NYMF PASS is now on sale at
http://nymf.org/festival/tickets. Individual tickets go onsale June 20. For more information and to book tickets visit
http://nymf.org/thegold.
Joseph Cohen is a Jewish-German boxer who finds his 1936 Olympic ambitions crushed as the Nazis rise to power. He soon learns that his toughest fight lies outside the ring as he is separated from the woman he loves and their young son. Set against the backdrop of the Holocaust and the creation of Israel, THE GOLD is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the journey of self-discovery that each of us takes as we search for purpose in our lives. Visit
www.TheGoldTheMusical.com
Philip Yosowitz (Book, Music, Lyrics) is a plastic surgeon by profession who has always composed music. Phil grew up with his Czech-born immigrant father and Hungarian-Romanian mother in Cleveland, Ohio. He completed his medical training at UCLA and at
Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., and began his private practice in Houston, TX, where he now resides. While Dr. Yosowitz's love for composing began in childhood, The Gold is his first completed musical theatre work. The story of The Gold was inspired by his love of athletics and his childhood memories of living with family members who were Holocaust survivors who had recently immigrated to the United States. He is a lover of history and is currently writing a musical based on Joan of Arc.
Andrea Lepcio (Book Writer) is best known for Looking for the Pony, a finalist for the
Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award and for the NEA Outstanding New American Play Award. It was presented in a "Rolling World Premiere" Off-Broadway at
Vital Theatre Company in New York and Synchronicity Performance Group in Atlanta and subsequent productions. Her plays and musicals have been produced and developed at HERE, Lark Play Development Center, Manhattan Theatre Source, New York Music Theatre Festival, New Shoe, Shalimar Productions, TerraNova Collective, Three Chicks, Titans Theatre, Vital Theatre, Williamsburg Art Nexus, and Women's Project in NY; Bloody Unicorn,
Goodspeed Opera House, Hangar Theatre, Miller Theatre, Provincetown Theatre Company, Synchronicity Performance Group, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, and Trustus Theatre, regionally, and Daegu International Musical Festival and The Little Theatre Group of Costa Rica, internationally. She is currently working on an EST/Sloan commission for a new play about the Montreal Protocol. Tunnel Vision will be produced at Off the Wall in Pittsburgh in October 2015. She developed Strait of Gibraltar and Dinner at Home between Deaths at
Naked Angels and Lark Play Development Center. Me You Us Them was developed with TerraNova Collective's Groundbreakers Playwrights Group and at the Lark Play Development Center. Central Avenue Breakdown (book by Kevin Ray,
Andrea Lepcio and
Dominic Taylor with additional story by
Suellen Vance and music/lyrics by Kevin Ray) performed at the Daegu International Musical Festival and New York Music Theatre Festival. Andrea is a member of the
Dramatists Guild and was the
Dramatists Guild Fellows Program Director for ten years. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist, a member of BMI
Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Librettist Workshop, the League of Professional Theater Women, New York Theatre Experience Advisory Board and an alumna of the Lark's Playwrights' Workshop and the Women's Project Playwrights' Lab. M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing,
Carnegie Mellon University. B.A. Human Ecology, College of the Atlantic. She lives in Seal Cove, Maine and travels frequently.
www.andrealepcio.com
Spiro Veloudos, now in his 18th season as Producing Artistic Director of the
Lyric Stage, has recenently directed Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods (
Elliot Norton Awards for Best Director and Outstanding Musical Production), One Man, Two Guvnors, and Death of a Salesman. In previous seasons he directed The Mikado, 33 Variations, On the Town, Avenue Q (
Elliot Norton Awards for Outstanding Musical and Outstanding Ensemble, five IRNE Awards including Best Musical and Best Director), The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (
Elliot Norton Award for Best Production and Best Director, five IRNE Awards including Best Director), Big River, Superior Donuts, Animal Crackers, Blithe Spirit, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, and Kiss Me, Kate. Spiro received the Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award from Salem State College. He was the recipient of the 2006
Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence. During his tenure, The
Lyric Stage has earned numerous awards and honors including
Elliot Norton Awards for Outstanding Production (Into the Woods, Nicholas Nickleby,
Speech & Debate, Miss Witherspoon, The Old Settler), and Outstanding Musical Production (Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George); Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Awards for Outstanding Production (Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Settler, Glengarry Glen Ross), and Outstanding Musical Production (Grey Gardens, Urinetown: The Musical, A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George). His numerous directing credits at the
Lyric Stage include A Little Night Music (IRNE Award for Direction), Glengarry Glen Ross (IRNE Award), Sunday in the Park with George (Best of the Year in Boston's Globe, Herald, and Phoenix;
Elliot Norton and IRNE Award for direction), Assassins (Best Production of 1998: The Boston Globe), Lost in Yonkers, Never the Sinner: The Leopold and Loeb Story (
Elliot Norton Award, along with Assassins), and Speed-the-Plow (
Elliot Norton for Outstanding Production). Mr. Veloudos received StageSource's Theatre Hero Award (2003) and was named Best Artistic Director by Boston Magazine in 1999. He serves as the president for the Producers' Association of New England Area Theatres, and is adjunct faculty in Performing Arts at Emerson College.
THE GOLD was conceived and written by Dr. Philip Yosowitz over a five-year period and completed over a decade ago. Philip teamed up with his daughter, Laura Yosowitz, founder of Vital Arts Collaborative and Arts with an Impact, as producer to develop the new work. In 2008,
Andrea Lepcio joined the team as book writer. To date, they have taken The Gold from a 450-page, handwritten score through three development readings, demo recordings, special events and two productions in Houston, TX. The 2009 production was held at Houston's prestigious outdoor city venue, Miller Outdoor Theatre, seating almost 2,000, and was sponsored by the Miller Outdoor Theatre and the Boniuk Center for Religious Tolerance at Rice University. The musical made its New York City debut with a developmental reading at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in July of 2015. For more information, please visit
www.thegoldthemusical.com.
The New York Musical Festival nurtures the creation, production, and public presentation of stylistically, thematically, and culturally diverse new musicals to ensure the future vitality of musical theater. Now in its thirteenth year, the Festival is the premier musical theater event in the world. The preeminent site for launching new musicals and discovering new talent, the Festival provides an affordable platform for artists to mount professional productions that reach their peers, industry leaders, and musical theater fans. More than 90 Festival shows have gone on to productions on and Off-Broadway, in regional theaters in all 50 states, and in more than 24 countries worldwide. Festival alumni have received a wide array of awards including the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 2013, NYMF received a special Drama Desk Award in recognition of its work "creating and nurturing new musical theatre, ensuring the future of this essential art form."
NYMF is the flagship program of National Music Theater Network, Inc., a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization. NYMF 2015 is sponsored by The City of New York Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment, Fuzzrocket, PRG, TheaterMania, and Clear Channel Spectacolor, and is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. The NYMF PASS is a great way to experience The New York Musical Festival. With a NYMF PASS, you can get into the theater before individual ticket holders. Passes also offer the exclusive ability to book tickets before they go on sale to the public. NYMF Passholder ticket booking begins June 6. Individual tickets go on sale June 20. The 2016 New York Musical Festival will take place July 11 - August 7. For more information, please visit:
www.nymf.org
Photo Credit: Billy Bustamante
