Britta Johnson's LIFE AFTER to Hold Industry Readings Featuring Mamie Parris & More

The Old Globe in association with Yonge Street Theatricals will present a by-invitation-only industry reading of the new musical Life After on Thursday, December 6 at 2:00 p.m. and Friday, December 7 at Noon at Ripley Grier Studios in New York City. The reading will help the creative team prepare for the musical's upcoming American premiere this winter at The Old Globe in San Diego, where it will run from March 22 to April 28, 2019.

Life After's book, music, and lyrics are written by Dora Mavor Moore Award winner, Britta Johnson. Johnson received the coveted Canadian award for the world premiere of the musical in Toronto in September of 2017. The production won a total of six Dora Mavor Moore Awards, including Best New Musical and Outstanding Production of a Musical in the 2017-2018 season.

The upcoming industry reading will be directed by The Old Globe's Artistic Director, Barry Edelstein, who will also be directing the upcoming run at The Old Globe.

Grieving the recent loss of her famous father, 16-year-old Alice begins to question the events surrounding his death and sets out to uncover what really happened on the night that changed her family forever. Johnson's Life After is a bittersweet, witty, and life-affirming new musical that explores the mess and beauty of loss and love. Through the vivid imagination of a young woman looking for the facts, we find a more complicated truth instead.

The cast for the reading will include: Antoinette Comer, Bradley Dean, Sophie Hearn, Charlotte Perry Maltby, Livvy Marcus, Katherine McLaughlin, Mamie Parris, Mackenzie Warren, and Charlotte Mary Wen.

(Casting is by Tara Rubin Casting, Merri Sugarman CSA.)

The Toronto Star called Life After "an intense, layered whirlwind of humour, grief and humanity. There's no doubt there will be life after Life After," and heralded Johnson as "a startlingly talented emerging voice." BroadwayWorld.com hailed the show as "musical theatre perfection...exquisite from start to finish."

B I O G R A P H I E S

Britta Johnson (Book, Music, and Lyrics, Life After) is a writer, composer and lyricist based in Toronto. Her credits include: Life After (Canadian Stage/Musical Stage/Yonge Street Theatricals; Dora Award Best New Musical, Best Musical Production). With her sister Anika Johnson: Dr. Silver: A Celebration of Life (Outside the March/Musical Stage Company), Brantwood (Theatre Sheridan; Dora Award for Audience Choice), Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang (YPT; Dora Nominee Best new musical), Trap Door (Theatre Sheridan, book by Morris Panych). With Sara Farb: Kelly V.Kelly (Theatre Sheridan CMTP), Reframed (Acting Up Stage Company/AGO; Dora nominee Best New Musical). With Katherine Cullen: Stupidhead! (Theatre Passe Muraille; Dora Nominee Best New Play). She was librettist for choreographer Robert Binet's adaptation of The Kreutzer Sonata for Ballet Moscow. She is the inaugural Crescendo Artist with the Musical Stage Company, which includes a commitment to produce 3 of her shows in 3 years.

Barry Edelstein (Director, Life After) is the Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director of The Old Globe and is a stage director, producer, author, and educator. He has directed nearly half of the Bard's plays. His Globe directing credits include The Winter's Tale, Othello, The Twenty-seventh Man, the world premiere of Rain, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Hamlet, and the world premiere of The Wanderers. He also directed All's Well That Ends Well as the inaugural production of the Globe for All community tour. He most recently directed The Tempest at Los Angeles Philharmonic. As Director of the Shakespeare Initiative at The Public Theater (2008-2012), Mr. Edelstein oversaw all of the company's Shakespearean productions as well as its educational, community outreach, and artist-training programs. At The Public, he staged the world premiere of The Twenty-seventh Man, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, and Steve Martin's WASP and Other Plays. He was also Associate Producer of The Public's Broadway production of The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino. From 1998 to 2003 he was Artistic Director of Classic Stage Company. His book Thinking Shakespeare, which was rereleased in a second edition in June, is the standard text on American Shakespearean acting. He is also the author of Bardisms: Shakespeare for All Occasions. He is a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

The Tony Award-winning The Old Globe is one of the country's leading professional regional theatres and has stood as San Diego's flagship arts institution for over 80 years. Under the leadership of Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein and Managing Director Timothy J. Shields, The Old Globe produces a year-round season of 15 productions of classic, contemporary, and new works on its three Balboa Park stages: the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the 600-seat Old Globe Theatre and the 250-seat Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, both part of The Old Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center, and the 605-seat outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, home of its internationally renowned Shakespeare Festival. More than 250,000 people attend Globe productions annually and participate in the theatre's artistic and arts engagement programs. Numerous world premieres such as 2014 Tony Award winner for Best Musical A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Meteor Shower, Bright Star, Allegiance, The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and the annual holiday musical Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas! have been developed at The Old Globe and have gone on to enjoy highly successful runs on Broadway and at regional theatres across the country.

YONGE STREEET THEATRICALS is a Dora Award winning and Tony Award-nominated Production Company led by Linda Barnett and Natalie Bartello. The duo have been working together in new musical development, at the grassroots level for the last twelve years. They develop original musicals and support and nurture exceptional works from the earliest stages. At the heart of their mission they strive to collaborate with the most exciting and engaging theatre professionals with an eye for shows that appeal to a wide audience. Current YST projects include: Come From Away in Toronto and on Broadway, Life After, a new musical by Britta Johnson, (6 Dora Awards including Outstanding Production of a Musical *Toronto Star - Top 11 Stage Shows of 2017, *The Globe and Mail - Best Theatre of 2017); Something Wicked This Way Comes (*11 Barrymore Award nominations including Outstanding Overall Production of a Musical) based on the Ray Bradbury novel; Wally Flynn an original musical by Steven Gallagher and Eli Bolin, and a new untitled musical by Irene Sankoff & David Hein (creators of Come From Away).

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos