FringeNYC Hit The Fartiste Set for Summer Off-Bway Run

The Fartiste, a musical about an unusually gifted music hall star that played the New York International Fringe Festival last year, will play Off-Broadway this summer, according to Variety.

The show was awarded the 2006 FringeNYC Award for Best Musical.  John Gould Rubin will return to direct the show, for which a theatre will be announced.  The production, capitalized at $1 million, will be produced by architect Diane Procter.  Steven Scott will reprise his FringeNYC duties in providing sound effects (with his mouth) for the show, which will feature a cast of 13 performers and 7 musicians.

"A new musical, The Fartiste is the strange but very true, story of Joseph Pujol. Pujol was an ordinary French baker with a case of ambition and an unusual and ass-tonishing talent—the ability to manipulate a limitless supply of odorless gas from his rectum - fashioning an amazing assortment of musical numbers, imitations, and ass- tounding tricks. With focused determination, Pujol took his talent to the famous Moulin Rouge where he put his bakers hat behind him as his derriere soon catapulted him to stardom.  The Fartiste is a touching story about one man's sacrifice for his art," as FringeNYC press notes described the show.  

The musical features music and lyrics by Michael Roberts (Golf: The Musical) and a book by Charlie Schulman, based on his screenplay.  Richard Move will once again choreograph.