LOVEMUSIK Announces Full Cast

Manhattan Theatre Club (Lynne Meadow, artistic director; Barry Grove, executive producer) is pleased to announce full casting for the world premiere of LoveMusik, a new musical featuring the songs of Kurt Weill, starring Tony Awardâ winners Michael Cerveris and Donna Murphy.

Suggested by the letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, LoveMusik features a book by Pulitzer and Tony Awardâ-winner Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy, Parade), a full range of Kurt Weill songs, musical staging by Patricia Birch (A Little Night Music), and direction by 21-time Tony Awardâ winner Harold Prince (The Phantom of the Opera, Cabaret, and Sweeney Todd).

Previews for LoveMusik begin Thursday, April 12 for a Thursday, May 3 opening.

LoveMusik follows the lives of the unlikeliest of lovers – the brilliant, intellectual German composer Kurt Weill (Cerveris) and the woman who became his muse and star, Lotte Lenya (Murphy). LoveMusik is an epic romance, set in Berlin, Paris, Broadway and Hollywood, spanning 25 years in the lives of this complicated couple.

The production will also feature David Pittu (Bertolt Brecht) and John Scherer (George Davis), with Judith Blazer, Edwin Cahill, Herndon Lackey, Erik Liberman, Ann Morrison, Graham Rowat, Rachel Ulanet and Jessica Wright.

LoveMusik is produced by Manhattan Theatre Club by special arrangement with Marty Bell, Aldo Scrofani, Boyett Ostar Productions, Tracy Aron, Roger Berlind/Debra Black, Chase Mishkin, and Ted Snowdon.

LoveMusik features the lyrics of Maxwell Anderson, Bertolt Brecht, Howard Dietz, Roger Fernay, Ira Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein II, Langston Hughes, Alan Jay Lerner, Maurice Magre, Ogden Nash, Elmer Rice and Kurt Weill.

The LoveMusik design and production team are Beowulf Boritt (Scenic Design), Judith Dolan (Costume Design), Howell Binkley (Lighting Design), Duncan Edwards (Sound Design), Paul Huntley (Wig Design), Angelina Avallone (Makeup Design), Mark Simon (Casting), Jonathan Tunick (Orchestrations), Kristen Blodgette (Musical Supervisor), Seymour Red Press (Music Coordinator), Milton Granger (Additional Vocal Arrangements), and Nicholas Archer (Conductor). Piano provided by Steinway & Sons.

Visit www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com for more information.

Tickets to LoveMusik are available by calling Telecharge.com at (212) 239-6200, (800) 432-7250 outside the NY metro area, online at Telecharge.com, and at the Biltmore Theatre box office (261 West 47th Street, between Broadway and 8th Avenue). Tickets range in price from $76.25 - $101.25.

Subscriptions to MTC can be obtained by calling (212) 399-3030, Monday - Friday, noon - 8 PM with a major credit card. Subscriptions are also available online at www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com.

LoveMusik tickets are currently on sale through June 17, 2007.

BIOGRAPHIES:

ALFRED UHRY (Book) has won the Triple Crown: Pulitzer Prize, Academy Award and Tony Award. His book for the musical version of Eudora Welty's The Robber Bridegroom was Tony nominated in 1976. His first play, Driving Miss Daisy, won the Pulitzer Prize and his next play, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, was commissioned by the Cultural Olympiad for the Atlanta Olympics and went on to win the Tony Award as Best Play of 1997. His book for the musical, Parade, was awarded a Tony as well. In June 2006, his play, Without Walls, starring Laurence Fishburne opened at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and in November 2006, his play, Edgardo Mine opened at The Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. His screenplay for Driving Miss Daisy was awarded an Academy Award, as well as a Writers Guild Award. His other screenplays include Mystic Pizza, Rich In Love, and bits and pieces of many more.

KURT WEILL (Music) (1900-1950) began his career in the early 1920's, after a musical childhood and several years of study in Berlin. By the time his first opera, The Protagonist (Georg Kaiser), was performed in April 1926, he was an established young German composer. But he had already decided to devote himself to the musical theater, and his works with Bertolt Brecht soon made him famous all over Europe. He fled the new Nazi leadership in March 1933 and continued his indefatigable efforts, first in Paris (1933-35), then in the U.S. until his death. Certain common threads tie together his career: a concern for social justice, an aggressive pursuit of highly-regarded playwrights and lyricists as collaborators, and the ability to adapt to audience tastes no matter where he found himself. His most important works: The Violin Concerto (1925), The Threepenny Opera (Bertolt Brecht, 1928), Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Brecht, 1930), The Pledge (Caspar Neher, 1932), The Seven Deadly Sins (Brecht, 1933), Lady in the Dark (Moss Hart and Ira Gershwin, 1941), Street Scene (Elmer Rice and Langston Hughes, 1947), Lost in the Stars (Maxwell Anderson, 1949). He died of heart failure in 1950, shortly after he and Anderson began work on a musical adaptation of Huckleberry Finn, leaving behind a large catalogue of works and a reputation that continues to grow as more of his music is performed. Weill was raised in a religious Jewish family in Dessau, Germany. Although he was not observant, he composed a number of "Jewish" works, from a vast score to The Eternal Road (1937, Franz Werfel) to a setting of the Kiddush. He married actress Lotte Lenya in 1926; they maintained a close relationship throughout his life despite their divorce in 1933 (they remarried in 1937).

PATRICIA BIRCH (Musical Staging) has earned two Emmy Awards, four Tony nominations, Drama Desk, Billboard, Barrymore and MTV awards for work in all media. Most recent Broadway projects include Band in Berlin, the story of the Comedian Harmonists and Parade at Lincoln Center with Harold Prince, Alfred Uhry, and Jason Robert Brown. In the past, choreography for original Broadway, Off-Broadway and Opera: You're A Good Man Charlie Brown, The Me Nobody Knows, Grease, A Little Night Music, Candide, Over Here, Pacific Overtures, They're Playing Our Song, Gilda Radner Live from New York, Zoot Suit, ROSA, Street Scene, The Mikado, The Cradle Will Rock, Happy End etc. Direction as well for: I Sent a letter to My Love (Melissa Manchester/Jeffrey Sweet), Really Rosie, (M. Sendak/Carole King) Raggedy Ann, Elvis, American Enterprise, Bernstein's Mass, What About Luv? (Jeffrey Sweet, Howard Marren, Susan Birkenhead) at York, The Snow Queen (Adrian Mitchell, Richard Peaslee) premiered at NYSTI and played London's Arts Theatre last season. Film: Grease, Grease II, The Wild Party, Roseland, Big, Awakenings, Working Girl, Sleeping With the Enemy, Stella, Billy Bathgate, First Wives Club, In and Out, etc. Videos: directed and choreographed for Cyndi Lauper, Rolling Stones, Carly Simon, etc. TV direction: Natalie Cole: Unforgettable; Celebrating Gershwin (Emmy awards for both); Dance in America, and the concertized On the Town, in collaboration with Michael Tilson Thomas with both London Symphony and San Francisco Philharmonic. Ms Birch spent six years staging numbers for Saturday Night Live, for stars including Gilda Radner, Steve Martin, Bill Murray, etc. Performance: Soloist with Martha Graham, revivals with Agnes DeMille, West Side Story (Broadway).

Harold Prince (Director) directed the premiere productions of Cabaret, the original Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, The Phantom of the Opera, She Loves Me, Company, Follies, Candide, Pacific Overtures, Evita, Parade, and Bounce. Before becoming a director, Mr. Prince's productions included The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello!, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Among the plays he has directed are Hollywood Arms, The Visit, The Great God Brown, End of the World, Play Memory and his own play, Grandchild of Kings. Recently, he has prepared a new version of Phantom, which is running in Las Vegas at the Venetian Hotel. His opera productions have been seen at Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Vienna Staatsoper and the Theater Colon in Buenos Aires. He served as a trustee for the New York Public Library and on the National Council of the Arts of the NEA. He is the recipient of a National Medal of Arts for the year 2000 from President Clinton for a career spanning more than 40 years, in which "he changed the nature of the American musical." The recipient of 21 Tony Awards, he was a 1994 Kennedy Center Honoree.

Michael Cerveris (Kurt Weill) received a 2006 Tony nomination, Drama Desk Award nomination, Outer Critics Circle Award nomination, and Drama League Award nomination for Sweeney Todd. Broadway: Assassins (Tony Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, original cast Grammy nomination), The Who's Tommy (Tony nomination, Theatre World Award, original cast Grammy Award) and Titanic. London's West End: Hedwig and the Angry Inch, also Off-Broadway and Los Angeles (Garland Award, Ovation Award nomination). Off-Broadway: Most recently, the NYSF production of King Lear opposite Kevin Kline, as well as premieres and revivals by Charles L. Mee, Lanford Wilson, Maria Irene Fornes and Christopher Hampton; The Games with Meredith Monk and Ping Chong (BAM Next Wave); The Apple Tree for Encores!; and the Emmy Award-winning broadcast of Sondheim's "Passion." Regional: Romeo, Puck, Crow in Tooth of Crime, Richard II, Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, Eastern Standard, Passion, Anyone Can Whistle, Sunday in The Park With George, and A Little Night Music (Jefferson Award nomination). Film includes The Mexican and Paul Auster's Lulu on the Bridge. TV: series regular on "Fame" and "The American Embassy." Cerveris toured the U.S. and U.K. as guitarist with punk icon Bob Mould and has performed with Pete Townshend, The Breeders, Stone Temple Pilots, Frank Black, Teenage Fanclub and Lloyd Cole. He recently released his indie rock debut solo album, Dog Eared (Low Heat Records). www.cerveris.com

Donna Murphy (Lotte Lenya) was honored with 2004 Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Astaire Awards; New York Magazine's Theater Award; the Drama League Award for Outstanding Achievement in Musical Theater; and a Tony nomination for her performance as Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town. She received Tony, Drama Desk and Drama League Awards for her performance as Fosca in Sondheim and Lapine's Passion, and Tony and Drama League Awards for Anna in The King and I (Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominations). Broadway: the title role in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Human Comedy, and They're Playing Our Song. Off-Broadway: most recently, the Encores! production of Follies; Helen (NYSF; Drama League Award), Twelve Dreams and Hello Again (Lincoln Center; Drama Desk nominations), Song of Singapore (Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominations), Privates on Parade (Roundabout), etc. Regional: Miss Julie (McCarter), Pal Joey (Huntington), Williamstown. Film: The Nanny Diaries (2007), The Fountain, World Trade Center, Spider-Man 2, The Door in the Floor, Center Stage, Star Trek: Insurrection, The Astronaut's Wife, Jade. TV: Heather Olshansky on "Hack," HBO's "Someone Had to Be Benny" (Cable Ace, Emmy Awards), "What About Joan," "Law & Order Criminal Intent," "Studio 60," "CSI," "The Last Debate," "The Day Lincoln Was Shot," "Murder One," "Leonard Bernstein's New York," "Liberty!," "Passion," "Kennedy Center Honors," "Law & Order," "The Practice," and "Ally McBeal." Recordings: Wall to Wall Sondheim, Wonderful Town, The King and I, Hello Again, Leonard Bernstein's New York, Passion (Grammy).

David Pittu (Bertolt Brecht). Broadway: The Coast of Utopia, Never Gonna Dance. Off-Broadway: Stuff Happens (Drama Desk Award: Outstanding Ensemble), Celebration & The Room (Drama Desk & Lucille Lortel nomination: Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play), Of Thee I Sing (Encores!), The Fourth Wall, Sympathetic Magic, The Lights, Hot Keys, The Butter and Egg Man (as director), and, as co-author, The Audience (Drama Desk nomination: Outstanding Musical). Regional/National tour: Parade (National Broadway Award: Best Actor in a Musical), Titanic, Company (Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration), Moonlight and Magnolias (Alliance), The Mask of Moriarty (Old Globe). Film: King Kong (Peter Jackson), Shortbus, The Spanish Prisoner. TV: "The Black Donnellys," "Law & Order," "Law & Order: SVU," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "Third Watch," "Sex & the City," and "The Sopranos." Member: Atlantic Theater Company.

John Scherer (George Davis) appeared last season as Herman in The Most Happy Fella at the New York City Opera. His Broadway credits include By Jeeves and Sunset Boulevard. He worked with Hal Prince in 3hree at the Prince Music Theatre and the Ahmanson Theatre. Other NY credits include Off-Broadway's Olympus On My Mind, Out Of This World at City Center, A Tribute To Comden & Green at Carnegie Hall and the all-star Actors Fund benefit performance of Funny Girl at the New Amsterdam Theatre. He toured nationally in Cats and 42nd Street. In Los Angeles he appeared in 1776 and Company with the Reprise series at UCLA. Other regional credits include leading roles at the Kennedy Center, Goodman Theater, Arena Stage, Geffen Playhouse, Goodspeed Opera House, Paper Mill Playhouse, Pittsburgh Public, Studio Arena, St Louis Rep, Cleveland Playhouse and the Cincinnati Playhouse. On television he has appeared on "Crossing Jordan," "The Shield," all three "Law & Order" series and "Titus." He is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University.

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