Stephen Schwartz's THE BLUE FLOWER Premieres at A.R.T. in Dec.

Stephen Schwartz, composer and lyricist of such Broadway classics as Wicked, Pippin, and Godspell makes his theatrical producing debut with Jim and Ruth Bauer's The Blue Flower, calling the production, "one of the most creative and original pieces of musical theatre that I've ever encountered in my life."

Mr. Schwartz, in addition to his financial commitment to the show, has contributed to the developmental process by working with creators Jim and Ruth Bauer, from its Early Stages via his ASCAP Foundation Workshop to their most recent preparation for its new life at Diane Paulus' American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) this December.

Stephen Schwartz is joined by two other producers, Andrew Levine of Flying Machine Productions and Steve Tate of Tate Theatrics, as they prepare the show for a future life.

"I got involved simply because I think this amazing show has to be seen," says Schwartz.
The Blue Flower, directed by Will Pomerantz, is powered by unique and seductive music, fanciful and funny silent films, and includes an eight-piece band live on stage that tells the story of four people buffeted by the shifting winds of history from Paris in the Belle Epoque through the battlefields of the Great War to the Weimar Republic and even 1950's America. The story of three artists, one scientist, and their love rectangle unfolds through the pages of a book of collages that artist Max Baumann has been working on for years.

The Blue Flower performs at American Repertory Theater December 1, 2010 - January 9, 2010. For more information and tickets, visit AmericanRepertoryTheater.org. Visit The Blue Flower at TheBlueFlower.org and Twitter.com/The_BlueFlower

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Stephen Schwartz (Producer)
Stephen Schwartz is best known as the composer and lyricist of such Broadway hits as Godspell, Pippin, and Wicked and the Academy-Award-winning songwriter of the films Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Prince of Egypt and Enchanted. This is first venture as a producer, undertaken because he is so passionate about The Blue Flower, he wants to do everything he can to bring it to a wider audience.

Andrew Levine (Producer)
Andrew Levine is the Executive Producing Director of Flying Machine Productions, overseeing the development of new theater, music and musical theater works. Broadway: Speed the Plow, Elling ; West End: Carousel; off-Broadway: Blood Type: Ragu. Andrew's involvement with the Blue Flower includes past developmental productions at Perry-Mansfield, NYMF and Prospect Theatre. As a founding member of Body Politic Theater: Lemkin's House, by Catherine Filloux and The Fulla From America, by Carlyle Brown. Andrew served as music director of the prestigious New Works festival at Perry-Mansfield School of the Performing Arts in Steamboat Springs, CO, where he initiated programs to develop new musicals, train composer/lyricists in the craft of writing for the stage and develop singers in the art of Cabaret. He spent four years as the resident music director for the Savannah College of Art and Design and has recently held positions on the theater faculties of The Hartt School and PACE University. Andrew has earned degrees from the Manhattan School of Music (BMus) and Georgia Southern University (MMus) and resides in Connecticut with his wife Jeanine Pardey and his son Garrett.

Steve Tate (Producer)
Steve has worked in nonprofit regional and commercial Broadway theatre for ten years and has since established Tate Theatrics, a full service theatrical producing office dedicated to the harnessing and creation of innovative and eclectic work driven by a new generation of emerging artists. Previous producing credits include award-winning Green Eyes, Here Today, Onward, Prospect Theater Company 10th Anniversary Concert, and The Four. Steve was named one of seven American Producers to participate in London's TS Eliot US/UK Exchange presented by The Old Vic, the historical home of Laurence Olivier and currently under the artistic direction of Kevin Spacey. A graduate from the University of California San Diego (UCSD), Steve spent four years at the Tony Award winning La Jolla Playhouse working marketing and communications to theatre education. Commercially, Steve ventured into the Broadway realm as Marketing Manager of RENT during its 10th Season of Love and national movie launch while employed at TMG - The Marketing Group. Steve worked in the online advertising arm of Broadway with Situation Interactive, serving a variety of productions including Tony Award-winning Spring Awakening, A Chorus Line (2006 revival), Blue Man Group, and Pulitzer Prize winning August: Osage County. www.TateTheatrics.com.

Jim Bauer (Music, Lyrics, Script, Videography)
Grew up in the abyss of Dallas, Texas but escaped and has lived happily in Boston, MA for over twenty years. He started piano lessons at age 6, taught himself guitar as a teenager, enrolled at Dartmouth College pursuing music theory/composition studies as well as piano with Gabriel Chodos, transferred to and earned a bachelors degree in music composition and theory at Haverford College where he was mentored by composers John Davison and Harold Boatrite. He has since spent a good deal of time composing and producing music scores for film and television while performing as singer/songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist in a variety of bands he periodically assembles. With DAGMAR (dagmartheband.com), his current project with singing partner Meghan McGeary, he performs in the New York City subways under the Music Under New York (MUNY) banner and on the streets of Boston and Cambridge. DAGMAR's third CD, "Door No. 3", was completed September 2010, completing a trilogy of albums that tell the fractured story of a guy who can't get out of bed in the morning and an insect goddess who plunges through the ether to rescue him. He has received numerous songwriting and performance awards, including the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Award in 2004 with his wife Ruth Bauer for their work on "The Blue Flower".

Ruth Bauer (Artwork, Story, Videography)
A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, her oil paintings, watercolors, collages and monotypes have been shown in group exhibits in museums (The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Hudson River Museum, The Tucson Museum of Art, The DeCordova Museum, The Brockton Museum, and the Rose Art Museum) and in solo exhibitions in galleries across the United States. Her work is included in notable private and public collections, and has been reviewed in a number of articles in art journals and newspapers, including ArtNews and The Boston Globe. As an illustrator she has created book jacket covers for Houghton-Mifflin, Viking, Harvard University Press and Orchard Books. Ruth believes as strongly in nurturing young artists as in making art, and is proud of her work as a faculty member and Chair of the Arts Department at Shore Country Day School in Beverly, MA. Ruth is a 2004 recipient of a Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Award. She is currently writing and illustrating a fictional journal of an amateur woman naturalist from the nineteenth century who has traveled to the mythical isle of Kokovoko (the home of the charismatic cannibal Queequeg in Herman Melville's Moby Dick) and is documenting the flora and fauna there.

Photo Credit: Genevieve Rafter-Keddy