THE CAN OPENER Set for 2015 Frigid NY Theater Festival, Begin. 2/19

The Can Opener: A Brief Horror Musical will return to the New York Stage on select dates starting February 19th at the Kraine Theater as part of the 2015 Frigid NY Theater Festival. This latest remount comes after an acclaimed, sold-out run at the Players Theater Boo Festival in 2014. After the 2014 sold-out premiere, James Huntington, of the The Village Light Opera Group, wrote "The story is clever, the music has real melodies... [it's] a wonderful piece of entertainment."

The writer M. Zachary Johnson describes The Can Opener as, Dr. Seuss meets zombies in a creepily over-perfect 1950s suburb. Young Bobbi, an intelligent but immature young woman, is tormented by zombies in her nightmares-and horrified to learn from the headlines that her visions are coming true! Under pressure from her parents she agrees to attend college, where she finds out how these nightmares started-and how they will end.

To accommodate the One Act format of the Boo Festival, the short musical was only 22 minutes long. This current edition has been expanded to develop the plot more. The writer M. Zachary Johnson who also acts as composer and the director Kenneth Oefelein have taken the shorter version and expanded it to venture into a world of Zombies and Bobbi's nightmares when she is off to college. To make this happen the team has successfully funded this production with IndieGoGo.

Johnson's prior theater work, The Boston Tea Party Opera, premiered at the New York International Fringe Festival, summer 2014. David Koteles at NY Theater Now described Johnson as "a young, enormously talented composer" and pointed out the "clever rhymes more typically heard in a Sondheim score than opera"; the show was "refreshingly smart and articulate." Koteles declared, "Let it be known, Johnson is a composer to watch." The show was also covered by The Huffington Post.

Members of the original presentation will return to reprise their roles: Sharon Lam is young Bobbie, Rose Marie Rupley is the Mother, Meghan Pulles and Andrew Blair return as the Zombies. Kevin Tucker will join the company as the Father. The newest role in this expanded production will be played by Jesse Corbin as Apollo, young Bobbi's love interest.

Performances are on select days and times February 19 - March 5, 2015. Tickets ($12-$16) are limited and can be purchased at http://www.thecanopenermusical.com/.

Photo Credit: Jocelyn Johnson