Rock Musical LIZZIE Now Available for Licensing

The creators of LIZZIE, the hard rock musical that tells the story of Lizzie Borden, America's favorite double axe-murderess and Victorian hometown girl, have announced that rights are now widely available to theaters and schools to produce the show. Requests may be submitted through their web site: www.LizzieTheMusical.com.

LIZZIE, which its creators describe as "an epic rock concept album come to life on stage," debuted at the Living Theater in New York in 2009, where it received three Drama Desk Award nominations. The following year LIZZIE was presented in the National Alliance for Musical Theatre's (NAMT) Festival of New Musicals.

Since then, LIZZIE has seen acclaimed productions in Cleveland, Houston, Portland (3 Portland Area Musical Theatre Awards), San Francisco (5 Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Excellence in Theatre Award nominations), and Denmark. LIZZIE has been included in Top 10 lists by theatre media in nearly every city it has played.

The New York Times called LIZZIE, "A gothic rock ritual with a 'riotgirl' attitude." TimeOut NY described it as "a fetching, brawny rock musical," and KQED in San Francisco said, "It's rare for show tunes to require this much intellectual engagement, but every turn of phrase is a revelation. You know more, you feel more, and like Borden, you want to get closer to the abyss. Listen to her sing to pigeons in a barn loft ... and you'll want to take her hand and gently place it on an axe."

In 1892 on a sweltering August day in a small New England town, a well-to-do elderly man and his second wife were brutally murdered with an axe in broad daylight. Lizzie Borden, their youngest daughter, was the primary suspect. She was arrested and tried, but, with no witnesses to the hideous crime, she was acquitted. The murders remain unsolved to this day. Though the actual history of Lizzie Borden provided the writers with inspiration and raw material, her legend, which comes down to us as a jump rope rhyme, is the imaginative core of LIZZIE:

"Lizzie Borden took an axe, Gave her mother forty whacks

When she saw what she had done, Gave her father forty-one"

History tells us Lizzie Borden was innocent, but the legend leaves no doubt about her guilt.

LIZZIE has been developed with the assistance of tiny mythic theatre company, HERE, and Took An Axe Productions (Hillary Richard & Peter McCabe) and producers Brisa Trinchero/Corey Brunish (Make Musicals) and Van Dean/Kenny Howard (Broadway Consortium). LIZZIE was presented at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre's Festival of New Musicals in 2010 and further developed by Village Theatre, Issaquah, Washington (Robb Hunt, Executive Producer • Steve Tomkins, Artistic Director).