Kelli O'Hara, Denée Benton, Patti Murin, Colin Donnell, Brian Stokes Mitchell and More to Star in BREATHE World Premiere
Told in five interlocking suites, each with a different songwriting team and director, Breathe chronicles the virus’s impact on five very different relationships.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Apr. 07, 2021
BREATHE, a new musical from #1 New York Times bestselling novelist Jodi Picoult (in her theatrical debut) and playwright Timothy Allen McDonald, will have its world premiere exclusively on OVERTURE+ on Friday, May 14th at 8 PM ET, it was announced today. Written as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, Breathe chronicles the virus's impact on five very different relationships. Told in five interlocking suites - each with a different songwriting team and director - Breathe features an all-star cast that includes Tony Award-winners Kelli O'Hara and Brian Stokes Mitchell, Patti Murin, Colin Donnell, Denée Benton, Rubén J. Carbajal, Matt Doyle, Max Clayton, Daniel Yearwood, T. Oliver Reid and Josh Davis.
Tickets are now available at BreatheMusical.com. The Original Cast Recording of Breathe will be released by Broadway Records on May 14 and available everywhere digital music is sold, and Music Theatre International will be licensing the show worldwide this summer.
Under the supervising direction of Tony Award nominee Jeff Calhoun, Breathe was filmed in March 2021 at the 92 Street Y's Kaufmann Concert Hall in New York City without an audience, in compliance with all New York State safety regulations. For most of the cast and crew, this marked their return to the stage and in-person performance since Broadway shut down on March 12, 2020.
Ranging from lighthearted to heartbreaking, unbelievable and all-too-real, Breathe traverses the COVID realities of parenting in quarantine, generational divides on Black Lives Matter, grief rituals via Zoom, and the vulnerabilities of intimacy and independence.
Check out a teaser below!
"The arts have always helped people make sense of seismic shifts in the world," Picoult said. "When the pandemic began, Tim and I wanted to memorialize how we shared the same anxiety and fear and frustration, even though we were all separated from each other. What's theatre, after all, but a person isolated in their own seat, having the same feelings as the person beside them, because of what's happening onstage?"
Adds McDonald: "As soon as I recovered from COVID-19 in March of 2020, Jodi and I started talking about how we could capture the chaos around us. We were inspired by theatre makers like Larry Kramer and Jonathan Larson, who also wrote about health crises in real time. With Broadway shut down, we wanted to financially and artistically support as many theatre makers as possible -- from stagehands to music directors to songwriters to directors to general management to technicians to orchestrators to copyists and more."
Each suite of Breathe, titled after a symptom of COVID-19, features a score from different composers, including longtime songwriting duo Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich (Ever After), Rob Rokicki (The Lightning Thief) and Rebecca Murillo (Not Quite Extinct), Daniel Mertzlufft and Kate Leonard (Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical), Tony Award-winner Doug Besterman (Little Did I Know) and Sharon Vaughn (Hats!) and Jonathan Larson Grant finalists Douglas Lyons and Ethan Pakchar (Five Points).
Complete cast and creative team credits are as follows:
FEVER
Starring Denée Benton & Rubén J. Carbajal
Music & Lyrics: Rob Rokicki & Rebecca Murillo
Book: Rob Rokicki, Rebecca Murillo, Jodi Picoult, Timothy Allen McDonald
Story: Jodi Picoult & Timothy Allen McDonald
Director: Emily Maltby
In Fever, a young woman's one-night stand extends far longer than expected.
ACHES
Starring Matt Doyle & Max Clayton
Music: Daniel Mertzlufft
Lyrics: Kate Leonard
Book & Story: Jodi Picoult & Timothy Allen McDonald
Director: Joe Barros
In Aches, a couple re-examines their relationship.
SWELLING & IRRITATION
Starring Patti Murin & Colin Donnell
Music: Doug Besterman
Lyrics: Sharon Vaughn
Book & Story: Jodi Picoult & Timothy Allen McDonald
Director: Lorin Latarro
In Swelling & Irritation, a dual-career couple homeschool their children.
FATIGUE
Starring Josh Davis, T. Oliver Reid, Daniel Yearwood
Music: Ethan Pakchar & Douglas Lyons
Lyrics & Book: Douglas Lyons
Story: Douglas Lyons, Jodi Picoult, Timothy Allen McDonald
Director: Zhailon Levingston
In Fatigue, a Black policeman finds himself weighing his career against the passions of his son, a grassroots organizer.
SHORTNESS OF BREATH
Starring Kelli O'Hara & Brian Stokes Mitchell
Music: Zina Goldrich
Lyrics: Marcy Heisler
Book & Story: Jodi Picoult & Timothy Allen McDonald
Director: Jeff Calhoun
In Shortness of Breath, a widow searches for closure.
The Orchestra was produced and recorded by Dan Rudin, with orchestrations and arrangements by Lynne Shankel and Meg Zervoulis serving as Music Supervisor.
Tickets to stream Breathe (starting at $25) are available at BreatheMusical.com. The musical will be available to stream on OVERTURE+ beginning May 14 through July 2, 2021. Breathe features a running time of approximately one hour, fifty minutes.
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