MTC's LoveMusik Begins Previews Tonight, April 12

Manhattan Theatre Club's world premiere production of LoveMusik will begin performances tonight, Thursday, April 12, in anticipation of a Thursday, May 3 opening.  LoveMusik is 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 Award-winner Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy, Parade). Musical staging will be 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 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 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 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.