LoveMusik to be Featured on NPR's Weekend Edition

Manhattan Theatre Club's world premiere production LoveMusik, a new Broadway musical, will be featured on NPR's "Weekend Edition: Sunday" on Sunday, April 29 between 8 AM – 10 AM. "Weekend Edition: Sunday" airs locally on WNYC 93.9 FM.

For the piece, producer Jeff Lunden spoke to LoveMusik creators: book writer Alfred Uhry and director Harold Prince about the idea behind writing the show, their passion for the music of composer Kurt Weill, and Prince's friendship with Weill's wife Lotte Lenya who starred in his landmark production of Cabaret. In addition, Lunden sat down with Tony Award winner Michael Cerveris who plays Weill and two-time Tony Award winner Donna Murphy who plays Lenya.

LoveMusik has been honored with 12 Drama Desk Award nominations including Outstanding Musical and five Outer Critics Circle Nominations including Outstanding New Broadway Musical. Cerveris and Murphy have each been respectively nominated for Outstanding Actor and Actress by the Outer Critics Circle and the Drama Desk Awards and both have received Drama League citations for their work in LoveMusik.

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

LoveMusik began performances on April 12th and opens on May 3rd.  Suggested by the letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, LoveMusik features a book by Pulitzer and Tony Award-winner Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy, Parade). Musical staging is provided by Patricia Birch (A Little Night Music), and direction by 21-time Tony Award-winner Prince (The Phantom of the Opera, Cabaret, and Sweeney Todd).

"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," state press notes.

The production also features 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 Robert Edwards (Sound Design), Paul Huntley (Wig Design), Angelina Avallone (Make-up 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).

Visit www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com for more information.

Photo of Donna Murphy by Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.