The New York Musical Theatre Festival, in association with TPTE LLC, will present the New York premiere of TO PAINT THE EARTH, music by Jonathan Portera and words by Daniel Frederick Levin, directed by Michael Bush (Stormy Weather, Based on a Totally True Story), as part of the 5th Annual NY Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). Performances will run September 22nd-Oct 1st.
Inspired by first-hand accounts from the Warsaw Ghetto, To Paint the Earth tells a fictional account of the resisters and their families, exploring how a broken community was brought to one of history's most stunning and unimaginable decisions--to fight a last battle they had no chance of winning. In 2004, the musical was selected for the prestigious
Richard Rodgers Development Award, administered by the Academy of Arts and Letters and chosen by a committee chaired by
Stephen Sondheim. The Award led to 7 staged readings in December of that year produced by Paulette Haupt of Premieres Inc.
Michael Bush directs a cast that features
Jane Pfitsch (Company, Les Liaisons Dangereuses),
Scott Richard Foster (Brooklyn),
Robin Skye (Parade, Cyrano-The Musical) and Darin de Paul (Grinch). Also featured are
Holly Ann Butler,
Fred Berman,
Jessica Carter,
Daniel Katz, Maxine Linehan,
Lauren Lebowitz,
David Nathan Perlow, A.J. Shively, Steve Strafford and
Lee Zarrett.
TO PAINT THE EARTH will have set design by Alexis Distler, costume design by Sara James, lighting design by Raquel Davis and sound design by
David Margolin Lawson. Katya Stanislavskaya will serve as Musical Director and Christian Imboden as orchestrator, with casting helmed by
Stephanie Klapper, and Lisa Dozier as the Producer/General Manager. Julie Tindell and Danny Lincoln will Associate Produce; Susannah Greenberg will serve as Press Rep.
Performances will be Monday, September 22nd, 8pm; Wednesday, September 24th, 5pm; Saturday, September 27th, 5pm and 9pm; Sunday, September 28th, 1pm; Wednesday, October 1st 9pm at 37 Arts, Theatre C, 450 West 37th Street, btw. 9th and 10th Avenues. Tickets $20, go to
www.nymf.org or call Ovation Tix at 212.352.3101.
Levin and Portera, in addition to To Paint the Earth, also wrote the short musical The Hungry Lion, (Dixon Place) and served as a
Jonathan Larson Memorial Fellow at the Dramatists Guild under the mentorship of
Lynn Ahrens and
Stephen Flaherty.
Daniel's full-length play, The Waiter, always the waiter…, received a reading at the 92nd Street Y's Makor/Steinhardt center in July, 2006. His one-act play, Going to Belize, was presented at the Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven, in February, 2007. Last Spring, Daniel's monologue, “A Glorious Evening,” was included alongside new works by
John Guare and
Neil LaBute in 5-story Walk-up, a series of short works performed at and for the benefit of the 13th Street Repertory. Daniel's newest musical, Campaign, for which he did words and music, is set on a fictional Senate race in Ohio. In April 2007, along with
Lauren Lebowitz and Julie Tindell, he co-created and produced Where's Darfur? at the Knitting Factory, a concert to raise awareness about the genocide and benefit the refugees in Darfur, Sudan. The night raised $10,000 for relief work. Daniel holds an MFA in musical theatre writing as a composer/lyricist from the NYU Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. www.danielflevin.com
Michael Bush served as the former director of artistic production for the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City, he was associated with MTC for over 25 years and helped artistically guide more than 150 new plays and musicals, including the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning Proof, and Doubt, and the Tony Award-winning Love! Valour! Compassion! At MTC, he most recently directed Based On A Totally True Story. He was instrumental in the rebirth of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s Cabaret & Performance Conference, and has served as its artistic director since 2005. Mr. Bush directed The Story Of My Life at Toronto's CanStage, and Murderers for The Philadelphia Theatre Company and the Emelin Theatre and Pittsburgh’s City Theatre. He also directed Stormy Weather starring
Leslie Uggams for The Prince Music Theatre in Philadelphia. Mr. Bush directed the New York Music Theater Festival productions of The Ballad Of Bonnie And Clyde (2005), and Grammy Award winning songwriter
Marcus Hummon's The Piper (2007) and Warrior (2006), starring
Deven May (Theatre World and Ovation Award-winner for Bat Boy: The Musical) and
Marla Schaffel (Tony Award-nominee for Jane Eyre). He will direct Hummon’s The Piper at the festival this fall. During his tenure as producing artistic director at Charlotte Repertory Theatre (2002-2004) he presented
Hilary Swank in The Miracle Worker,
Penny Fuller in The Glass Menagerie, and directed
Emily Skinner in the 20th Anniversary production of Pump Boys And Dinettes. He also directed and co-wrote the book for the musical Let Me Sing starring Andre DeShields and
Marla Schaffel, co-produced with
George Street Playhouse and Charlotte Repertory Theatre.
Hailed as "the Sundance of Musical Theatre," The New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) exists to revitalize one of America’s greatest art forms by discovering, supporting and promoting new musical theater artists, producers, and projects, and by introducing a diverse audience to the vibrancy of contemporary musical theater. Since its inception in 2004, the three-week annual festival has premiered more than 130 new musicals – many of which have gone on to award-winning productions in New York, in regional theaters and on tour in 38 states, and nine countries worldwide. NYMF 2004 hit
Altar Boyz has played well over 1,000 performances off-Broadway and is now in its fourth year at New World Stages; fellow NYMF alum
[title of show] recently began performances at the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway.
Widely regarded as the essential source for new material and talent discovery, NYMF is the flagship program of The National Music Theater Network, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization, and is presented in association with BroadwayWorld.com, Production Resource Group and TheaterMania.com, and is supported by amNewYork, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, BroadwayBox.com, BroadwayInsider.com, Frank & Camille's Fine Pianos, HX Magazine, Jossip.com, King Displays, Queerty.com, Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, Metromix.com, The New York Blade, Next Magazine, Panasonic Astrovision, Queerty.com, Tekserve, TheMENEvent, VOGA Italia, and The Zipper Factory. NYMF is supported, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
Festival memberships are on sale now and can be purchased online at
www.nymf.org or by calling (212) 352-3101; single tickets go on sale on September 1. For more information, visit
www.nymf.org.
