Full Casting Announced for 'Lone Star Love'

Lone Star Love, a new musical comedy starring Academy Award nominee Randy Quaid in his Broadway debut as Colonel John Falstaff, has announced full casting as it begins rehearsals this week for its Seattle engagement at The 5th Avenue Theatre, September 8 - 30. Lone Star Love will open on Broadway on Monday, December 3 at New York's Belasco Theatre; previews will begin Thursday, November 1.

As previously announced, Tony Award nominee Robert Cuccioli (Jekyll & Hyde) and three-time Tony Award nominee Dee Hoty (Footloose, The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public ,Will Rogers Follies) will star as Frank Ford and Margaret Anne Page respectively. They are joined by Lauren Kennedy (Spamalot, Sunset Boulevard) as Agnes Ford, Clarke Thorell (Hairspray, The Who's Tommy) as Fenton, Ramona Keller (Smokey Joe's Café) as Miss Quickly, Drew McVety (Spamalot, Big River), as Doctor Caius, Dan Sharkey (The Music Man, Showboat) as George Page, Kara Lindsay as MissAnne Page, Nick Sullivan (Footloose) as Sheriff Bob Shallow and BranDon Williams (Off-B'way: Lone Star Love) as Abraham Slender.

Seattle audiences will recognize many of these faces (and voices) from past productions at The 5th Avenue. Dee Hoty starred as Reno Sweeney in The 5th Avenue's production of Anything Goes in 2000. Robert Cuccioli was last seen at The 5th Avenue in A Little Night Music and, before that, he took on the dual title roles in Jekyll & Hyde, which premiered at The 5th Avenue and then went on to Broadway, earning Cuccioli a Tony nomination. Clarke Thorell originated the role of Corny Collins in Hairspray here in Seattle and on Broadway. Ramona Keller starred as Lorrell in The 5th Avenue's recent production of Dreamgirls, and freshest in Seattle's memory is Miguel A. Romero, cast in the Lone Star Love ensemble, and known at The 5th Avenue as Bernardo in last season's acclaimed production of West Side Story.

The complete ensemble includes Stacey Harris, Amanda Lea LaVergne, Ryan Murray, Monica Patton, Miguel A. Romero, Chad Seib, Jeremy Benton, Anne Horak, Kristie Dale Sanders and Tony Lawson.

Red Clay Ramblers Chris Frank and Jack Herrick head up the on-stage band, which also includes Sam Bardfeld, Gary Bristol, Shannon Ford and Emily Mikesell. The Red Clay Ramblers won a special 1999 Tony® Award for FOOL MOON, for which Frank Rich in The New York Times described them as "a musical group whose eclectic repertory is that of a fantasy roadhouse band from a vanished rural America. Bluegrass, New Orleans, classical folk and gospel sounds emerge in nutty profusion from these talented instrumentalists and singers, whose music making is perfection." FOOL MOON and The Red Clay Ramblers appeared on the 5th Avenue stage in 1998.

Lone Star Love is inspired by Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor transplanted to the Wild West shortly after the Civil War. Directed and choreographed by Randy Skinner, the musical is conceived by John L. Haber, with a book by Robert Horn and Haber and a foot-stomping score by Red Clay Rambler Jack Herrick. John Rando (The Wedding Singer, Urinetown) is on board as creative supervisor for the production.

Lone Star Love's creative team includes set designer Derek McLane (Grease, Lestat, Threepenny Opera), costume designer Jane Greenwood (Heartbreak House, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf), lighting designers Ken Billington (Chicago, The Drowsy Chaperone) and Paul Miller (Legally Blonde, Laughing Room Only), sound designer Tom Morse (Jake's Women, Lost in Yonkers) and hair/wig designer Tom Watson. Barry Moss is casting director, Jack Herrick is musical director and Ken Lundie is associate musical director.

Lone Star Love will be produced on Broadway by Avenue A Productions, Roger Berlind, Robert Boyett Theatricals, Edmund and Eleanor Burke, Rusty and Susan Carter, Jon and Jeanne Cutler, Daisy Theatricals, and Michael Speyer/Bernard Abrams. Executive Producer is Mary Ann Anderson, and Linda Wright and the late Frederic B. Vogel are associate producers. Roger Gindi is general manager.

An earlier version of Lone Star Love presented by Amas Musical Theatre (Donna Trinkoff, producing director, Rosetta LeNoire, founder) played a highly successful limited engagement Off-Broadway as part of the 2004-05 season under Michael Bogdanov's direction.

Randy Quaid (Colonel John Falstaff). Oscar, Emmy, BAFTA, and Independent Spirit Award nominee and Golden Globe winner, Randy Quaid is one of the most versatile stars in the entertainment industry with over 25 years of memorable performances in film, television and stage. As a young man driven by an intense passion for the craft of acting, he rode a bus from Texas to Hollywood and took a job as a janitor. Within a year, he earned an Academy Award nomination for his first lead performance in The Last Detail. Quaid's astonishingly varied film repertoire spans from modern day classics (Midnight Express, The Last Picture Show) to blockbusters (Independence Day, Days of Thunder) to comedies (Kingpin, Christmas Vacation) to Academy Award winners (Brokeback Mountain, Paper Moon). He recently appeared as the King of Spain in Milos Forman's Goya's Ghosts and will soon be seen in the films Gary the Tennis Coach and Real Time. The television roles created by Quaid have been equally indelible, including the larger-than-life Colonel Tom Parker in "Elvis," the complex title role in "LBJ: The Early Years," and the heartbreaking Lenny in "Of Mice and Men." His previous stage credits include Shakespeare in the Park's The Golem and Sam Shepard's True West and God of Hell.

Robert Cuccioli (Mr. Ford) last appeared at The 5th Avenue Theatre in A Little Night Music. Broadway: Jekyll & Hyde (Tony Award nomination, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards), Les Miserables. Off-Broadway: Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living In Paris, Temporary Help, Enter The Guardsman, And The World Goes 'Round (Outer Critics Circle Award), Gigi, The Rothschilds. Tour: Jekyll & Hyde (Chicago's Joseph Jefferson Award); Camelot w/ Richard Harris. Regional: Hamlet, Pajama Game, Bells Are Ringing, Guys & Dolls, Lorenzaccio (Helen Hayes Award nomination), Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Antony & Cleopatra, Carnival, The Sound of Music, Jesus Christ Superstar, Fiction, The School For Scandal. Television: "Sliders," "Baywatch," "The Guiding Light." Film: Celebrity, The Stranger.

Dee Hoty (Mrs. Page) has received three Tony nominations for her starring roles in Footloose, The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public and Will Rogers Follies. Broadway: Mamma Mia!, City of Angels, Me and My Girl, Big River, The Five O' Clock Girl, Shakespeare's Cabaret. Off-Broadway: Personals, Vanities, Forbidden Broadway. Regional: St. Louis Rep, Hartford Stage, Pittsburgh CLO, Paper Mill, O'Neill Conference, Bay Street, Louisville, Cleveland Playhouse, Goodspeed, Ford's. Workshops: Dangerous Beauty and Night of the Hunter. TV: Law & Order: CI. Upcoming film: The Understudy. Dee appeared at The 5th Avenue Theatre as Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes in 2000.

Lauren Kennedy (Mrs. Ford). Broadway: most recently Lady Of The Lake in Monty Python's Spamalot, Sunset Boulevard, Side Show and Les Miserables. Cinderella at NYCO. London: Trevor Nunn's RNT revival of South Pacific as Nellie Forbsh. New works and Premieres: The Ten Commandments opposite Val Kilmer, Frank Wildhorn's Waiting For The Moon (Barrymore Award Nom.), The Rhythm Club (Helen Hayes Nom.), White Christmas, and The Last Five Years. Her debut solo album Lauren Kennedy Songs of Jason Robert Brown and her second album, to be released this fall, are both available on PS Classics. www.laurenkennedy.com

John L. Haber (Conceiver/Co-Author) grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, graduated from UNC/Chapel Hill and holds an MFA in Directing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. His collaboration with The Red Clay Ramblers began with Diamond Studs, a 1975 Off-Broadway hit that he co-created with Bland Simpson and Jim Wann. Other projects he has developed and/or directed include Frimbo, a "train musical" that was mounted in the middle of NY's Grand Central Terminal, The Wonderful O, a musical based on James Thurber's book, King Mackerel and the Blues are Running, another Simpson-Wann effort with Don Dixon, and outside of theatre, Habey's Cookies.

Jack Herrick (Music & Lyrics, Musical Director, Captain Pistol, the band). Artistic Director and member of The Red Clay Ramblers. Shows as composer/ lyricist/ performer include: Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind, Far North and Silent Tongue. With Bland Simpson, he wrote Tar Heel Voices, Cool Spring and Kudzu. Other musicals include Ear Rings (with Tommy Thompson); Munci Meg (with Don Baker and Robin Mullins); Glory Bound (with Tom Zeigler) and Wilder (with Erin Cressida Wilson and Mike Craver). Children's musicals include Johnny Appleseed, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Bah Humbug. With Bill Irwin, Dave Shiner, and the Ramblers, Jack created and performed in the Tony Award-winning FOOL MOON (which appeared at The 5th Avenue in 1998).

Randy Skinner (Director/Choreographer). Shows include: 42nd Street (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics, Astaire nominations), State Fair (Outer Critics nomination), Ain't Broadway Grand (Tony, Outer Critics nominations), After the Night and the Music,(MTC/Biltmore), Irving Berlin's White Christmas, Do Re Mi, Of Thee I Sing, and Face The Music (the last three for City Center Encores), Lone Star Love (off-Broadway/Lucille Lortel nomination), Puttin' on the Ritz (Kennedy Center), Stormy Weather (with Leslie Uggams/The Prince Music Theatre). In Los Angeles: Happy Days, Hello Dolly (with Nell Carter), Pal Joey (with Dixie Carter, Elaine Stritch), Strike up the Band (with Tom Bosley). The 2001 Tony Award Telecast (opening number). He has received the LA Drama Critics, LA Dramalogue, Bay Area Critics, Connecticut Critics, and Cleveland Times Theatre Awards.

Tickets to Lone Star Love are on sale now and range in price from $20 - $77. Tickets are available over the phone by calling 206-625-1900 (toll free 888-5TH-4TIX), online at www.5thavenue.org or in person at the box office in downtown Seattle. There is no service charge when purchasing tickets in person at The 5th Avenue Theatre Box Office.

A special mid-week Student Matinee is scheduled for Wednesday, September 26 at 10 a.m. Tickets cost $16 and may only be ordered through schools. Educators should call Group Sales at 888-625-1418 to order tickets.

The 5th Avenue Theatre is Seattle's premier musical theater. In 1980, the non-profit 5th Avenue Theatre began producing and presenting top-quality live musical theater for the cultural enrichment of the Northwest community. The 5th Avenue Theatre maintains a subscription audience of more than 24,000 and an annual attendance of over 225,000. It ranks among the nation's largest and most respected musical theater companies. The Theatre is committed to encouraging the next generation of theatergoers through its Educational Outreach Program which includes: The Adventure Musical Theatre Touring Company, The 5th Avenue High School Musical Theatre Awards, the Student Matinee Program and Spotlight Nights. Unique in its Chinese-inspired design, the exquisite theater opened in 1926 as a venue for vaudeville and film. Today, under the leadership of Managing Director Marilynn Sheldon and Producing Artistic Director David Armstrong, The 5th Avenue Theatre continues to achieve the highest standards in all aspects of artistic endeavors and facility operations, while preserving its artistic, architectural and historic legacy. Visit www.5thavenue.org.