Swimming Upstream Opens at Fringe Fest, Aug 12
By: BWW News Desk Jul. 22, 2005
Produced by Blank Page Productions and P2 Creations, the musical will star Doug Kreeger (Loeb in the York Theatre Co. production of Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story) and Jessica-Snow Wilson (Good Vibrations and Little Shop of Horrors). Directed and choreographed by Marlo Hunter, Swimming Upstream is (rather appropriatedly) penned by the father-and-son team of Marshall Pailet (book and music) and Al Pailet (book and lyrics). Marshall, currently a freshman at Yale University, began writing the musical with his father at the age of 15, and they have continued to refine it.
"Welcome to high school...Enter Todd, a misfit, artsy student who has one lifelong dream: to write a musical. His golden opportunity finally presents itself with the announcement of the first-ever Judy Blick Baumgarten Initiatives in Health Awareness Award. With that, Todd sets out to create his magnum opus – a musical about the life of a sperm. His journey includes a Gilbert & Sullivan-esque exploration of foreplay, 'The Pirates of Mens-pants,' and a piece about the first biblical circumcision, 'Sacrifice,'" state production notes.
Christopher Kale Jones, John Cameron Barnett, Heath Calvert, Andrew Grosshandler and Matt Owen are also featured in the cast of the show, which features music supervision by Ben Cohn (Wicked, Avenue Q), sets and costumes by Joseph J. Egan (The Great American Trailer Park Musical -- NYMF '04), music direction by Nathan Kelly (Thrill Me) and orchestrations by Marshall Pailet. Swimming Upstream was previously staged at Princeton University's Wilson Black Box Theatre in March, and was a finalist for the 2004 National Musical Theater Network New Voices Award; the show was also selected for Stephen Schwartz's prestigious ASCAP 2003 Music Theatre Workshop.
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