GIANT to be Licensed Through R&H Theatricals

Ghostlight Records will release the Original Cast Recording of the acclaimed epic musical GIANTonline and in stores on May 21, 2013. Performance rights for GIANT will be licensed through R&H Theatricals, a division of Rodgers & Hammerstein, an Imagem Company. Applications for performance are not yet being accepted and will be announced at a later date. In the meantime all inquiries should be directed to Theatre@rnh.com. For more information please visit http://www.rnh.com/show/335/GIANT.

GIANT had its New York Premiere at The Public Theater last fall, and was a co-production with Dallas Theater Center. GIANTfeatures music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa, and a book by Sybille Pearson, based on the novel by Edna Ferber. This production was directed by Michael Greif and had choreography by Alex Sanchez. To pre-order the album, please visit www.sh-k-boom.com/giant.html.

The two-disc cast album - produced by Kurt Deutsch, Joel Moss and Michael John LaChiusa - includes a 44 page, full-color booklet with the entire libretto and liner notes by Oskar Eustis, The Public Theater's Artistic Director. GIANT boasts a company of 26 actors, a 17-piece orchestra, and lush orchestrations by Bruce Coughlin, with additional orchestrations by Larry Hochman.

This recording marks The Public's fourth album in collaboration with Ghostlight Records, including the previously released Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Hair, and See What I Wanna See. This is also the label's fifth album with Michael John LaChiusa (Queen of the Mist, See What I Wanna See, Bernarda Alba, and Little Fish). The GIANT original cast recording has been supported by the Shen Family Foundation.

The Wall Street Journal raved "Giant is the most important new musical to come along since The Light in the Piazza. It's a show of immense and fully realized promise. LaChiusa is one of the most prodigiously gifted musical-theater songwriters since Stephen Sondheim."

The Public Theater has a long history of producing new musicals, and is the only theater in New York City that presents Shakespeare and the classics, musicals, new works, and experimental theater in equal measure. GIANT is a new American musical that spans generations in an epic chronicle of the state that's like no place else on earth: Texas. Amid a turbulent culture of greed, bigotry and money, a powerful cattleman, his new East Coast bride, their family and friends - not to mention their enemies - embrace and confront the joys and sorrows that loom as large as the state they call home.

The GIANT cast included Enrique Acevedo, Raul Aranas, Becca Ayers, Mary Bacon, Kate Baldwin, Xavier Cano, Miguel Cervantes, Natalie Cortez, Rocío Del Mar Vallés, John Dossett, Jon Fletcher, PJ Griffith, Michael Halling, Brian d'Arcy James, Mackenzie Mauzy, Melissa Mitchell, Doreen Montalvo, Michele Pawk, Allison Rogers, Isabel Santiago, Tally Sessions, Martín Solá, Bobby Steggert, Matthew Stocke, Katie Thompson, and William Youmans.

GIANT featured scenic design by Allen Moyer; costume design by Jeff Mahshie; lighting design by Kenneth Posner; sound design byBrian Ronan; hair and wig design by David BrIan Brown; and musical direction by Chris Fenwick.

Michael John LaChiusa (Music and Lyrics). His works for The Public include See What I Wanna See (2006 Lortel Award Nomination, Outstanding Musical); The Petrified Prince; First Lady Suite; and The Wild Party. He was also The Public's artist-in-residence during the 1997-98 season. His Broadway credits include The Wild Party, which received a Tony nomination for Best Score and Book; Marie Christine; and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, for which he received a Tony nomination for Best Musical, and Best Book, with Graciela Daniele and Jim Lewis. His additional Off-Broadway credits include Queen of the Mist, Bernarda Alba, Little Fish, Hello Again, among others. He has also written the libretti to operas composted by Robert Moran and Anthony Davis and was the Resident Composer at the Lyric Opera of Chicago 1998-99.

Sybille Pearson (Book) wrote the book for Baby on Broadway, for which she received a Tony nomination. Her Off-Broadway credits include True History and Real Adventures; Unfinished Stories; and Sally and Marsha. Pearson's additional plays include Watching the Dog, Be Bold, and Promise Me. She is a recipient of the Berrilla Kerr Award, the Darryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, Rockefeller Playwrights Fellowship, and was an Artistic Resident at the Vineyard Theatre in NYC. She is on the faculty of The Graduate Program for Musical Theatre Writing at New York University.

Edna Ferber (Novel). Her novels include So Big (1924; Pulitzer Prize), Showboat (1926), Cimarron (1929), Come and Get It (1935),Saratoga Trunk (1941), Giant (1952) and Ice Palace (1958). She was a member of the famed Algonquin Round Table and her collaboration with George S. Kaufman includes the acclaimed plays The Royal Family (1927), Dinner At Eight (1932), and Stage Door (1936). Ferber died in 1968, and the New York Times said, "Her books were vivid and had a sound sociological basis. She was among the best-read novelists in the nation, and critics of the 1920s and '30s did not hesitate to call her the greatest American woman novelist of her day."