RIALTO CHATTER: Mutrux's BABY, IT'S YOU Musical Broadway-Bound in 2011?

Variety reports today that the biographical musical about composer Florence Greenberg by Million Dollar Quartet producer and book writer Floyd Mutrux is being prepped for a 2011 Broadway opening.  Entitled Baby, It's You, the musical is aiming to open in the winter of 2011, co- directed by Mutrux and Sheldon Epps.  Mutrux and Epps also collaborated on the Pasadena Playhouse production in November of 2009.  The show premiered at the Coast Playhouse in Los Angeles prior to its Pasadena run.

Last presented by Pasadena Playhouse last year, by special arrangement with American Pop Anthology, Jonathan Sanger, Jerry Katell, Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, Joan Stein, in association with Universal Music Group, Baby It's You! is written by Colin Escott (Broadway-bound Million Dollar Quartet) and Floyd Mutrux (Broadway-bound Million Dollar Quartet and the award-winning film American Hot Wax).

Wrapped in the sensational songs of the 60s, Baby, It's You! is the new musical about the groundbreaking girl group, The Shirelles and Florence Greenberg, the New Jersey housewife who discovered them. With the help of African-American songwriter, producer Luther Dixon, Florence took on a male dominated industry and revolutionized pop music. Her company, Scepter Records, created the most important songs in the golden era of rock 'n' roll, from artists including The Isley Brothers, The Kingsmen, Chuck Jackson and Dionne Warwick.

The Pasadena Playhouse cast included Erica Ash as Micki/Shirelle (MAD TV, The Lion King), Berlando Drake as Shirley/Shirelle (Raelette in the Ray Charles Orchestra), Geno Henderson as Jocko /Ron Isley/Chuck Jackson/Gene Chandler (Performed with The Gap Band, Sly Stone, The Pointer Sisters, The 5th Dimension), Meeghan Holaway as Florence Greenberg (Off-Broadway's Dinner with Friends), Adam Irizarry as Stanley/Mr. Bass Man/Burt Bacharach, Co-Musical Director ("The Piano Man" in Broadway's Movin Out), Paulette Ivory as Beverly/Shirelle/Dionne Warwick (Pasadena Playhouse's Purlie, National Tour of Aida, West End's The Lion King), Crystal Starr Knighton as Doris/Shirelle/Millie (Background Singer for Jessica Simpson, Kanye West, Smokey Robinson), Allan Louis as Luther Dixon (Ragtime, Stomp the Yard, Marco Giordani in CW's Privileged), Matt McKenzie as Marvin Schlacter (Broadway's Monday After the Miracle, Academy Award-winning film Gods and Monsters), Barry Pearl as Bernie Greenberg/Milt Gabler (Broadway's Bye Bye Birdie, Oliver!), and Suzanne Petrela as Mary Jane/Lesley Gore (Pasadena Playhouse's Mask, Center Theatre Group's Post Office)

Along with Escott and Mutrux, the creative team featured Birgitte Mutrux (choreography), Richard Perry (music supervisor/arrangements), Anna Louizos (scenic design), Lizz Wolf (costume design), Howell Binkley (lighting design), Martin Carrillo (sound design), Carol Doran (wig and hair design), Jason H. Thompson (projection design), Adam Irizarry (musical director/additional arrangements), Michael Donovan (casting), Joan Stein (general manager), Ronn Goswick (production stage manager), Lea Chazin (assistant stage manager), and Bari Newport (Assistant Director).