LIZZIE Comes to Actor's Express Next Month

Actor's Express continues its 34th season with a production of Lizzie, a blazing rock-and-roll musical based on the famous American history true crime story of Lizzie Borden. "Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one." Or did she? Lizzie is directed by Jennifer Alice Acker, with music direction by Ashley Prince and choreography by Bubba Carr.

Lizzie was presented at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre's Festival of New Musicals in New York City in 2010 and further developed by Village Theatre, in Issaquah, Washington. Lizzie has performed in over 60 cities, in six countries, in five languages across four continents and has been honored with awards such as the "Best Musical '' award at the Korea Musical Awards and nominated for three Drama Desk Awards. Lizzie explores themes such as female empowerment, oppresion, rage, sexual abuse, murder and the idea of burning the patriarchy to the f**king ground.

According to Artistic Director Freddie Ashley, "First of all, the music is out of this world. It gets inside you and fills you with tingles. But there's also something intriguing about taking an old mystery that has been burned into American folklore and smashing all our preconceived notions about it to bits."

Lizzie is written by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer, Alan Stevens Hewitt and Tim Maner. Cheslik-deMeyer is a 2019 Jonathan Larson Grant finalist, a MacDowell Fellow, and a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in American Studies. Hewitt is an actively performing musician and his credits include Broadway's Frozen, Come From Away, The Band's Visit, Fun Home (also 1st Natl. Tour), Finding Neverland, Matilda, Sting's Last Ship, Rocky, Jekyll & Hyde, Lysistrata Jones, Green Day's American Idiot, and Spring Awakening (also 1st Natl. Tour). Manner is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts and co-founded HERE, an award-winning NYC arts center called "One of the most unusual arts spaces in New York - and possibly the model for the cutting edge arts space of tomorrow" by The New York Times.

Jennifer Alice Acker is an Atlanta-based director and actor and the Executive Director of Eclectic Music, an intown music school. She is a graduate of Florida State University, holding dual degrees in Music and Theatre, and she has studied with Theatre Academy London and apprenticed at the Atlanta Shakespeare Company. Recent directing credits include Mac|Beth at Synchronicity, Citizen's Market and Roe at Horizon Theatre, Christmas with the Crawfords at Out Front, Wonder Women for Studio Tenn and the Atlanta Music Theatre Festival, and The Last Time We Were Here for The New York Music Theatre Festival. Influenced deeply by her background in Musical Theatre, the works of William Shakespeare and the devised theatre of Jerzy Grotowksi, Jennifer's work favors striking visuals, authentic storytelling, and a strong flirtation with the line where magic and reality meet. www.jenniferaliceacker.com

Lizzie begins previews July 7th and opens July 9th. Performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 8 PM and Sunday at 2 PM. Tickets start at $20 and may be purchased online at actors-express.com or by calling 404-607-7469.

*This production will be performed at the Conant Performing Arts Center at Oglethorpe University.

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