Suffolk University to Present Boston Premiere of Rock Musical MIDSUMMER NIGHT, 4/10-13

The Suffolk University Theatre Department presents a new rock musical by Brendan Milburn and Valerie Vigoda, Midsummer Night, loosely adapted from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, April 10-13 at the Modern Theatre.

The Boston premiere of this new musical is directed by Marilyn Plotkins, with musical direction by Scott Nicholas. Additional music was written by Gene Lewin, and the adaptation was conceived by Janet Roston. The production features 20 student actors, musicians, circus performers and dancers in a rousing 90-minute show.

The musical has Titania and Oberon - rock stars and hot-blooded lovers -locked in a nasty feud. Their quarrel boils over at a rock festival, entangling the lovers, an infatuated personal assistant, and an ambitious roadie, with unintended, hilarious consequences. The Suffolk University Theatre Department is the first to bring this innovative new work to the Boston stage.

Midsummer Night opens Thursday, April 10, and runs through Sunday, April 13, 2014. Tickets are $20 for the general public and are available online at www.moderntheatre.com. Discounted $15 tickets are available for students and seniors. The Modern Theatre is located at 525 Washington St. in Boston's Theater District.

About the artists:

Milburn and Vigoda are a husband-and-wife composer team and have been writing songs together for 19 years, first for their band GrooveLily and more recently for musical theater and film. Their work includes two musicals written with librettist Rachel Sheinkin: Striking 12 (off-Broadway and regional and international productions) and Sleeping Beauty Wakes (Center Theatre Group, DeafWest, McCarter, La Jolla Playhouse). Other musical theater work includes Toy Story: The Musical (Disney), Wheelhouse (TheatreWorks), Long Story Short (Pittsburgh City Theatre, TheatreWorks, San Diego Rep), and Fantasy Faire (Disneyland's Royal Theatre, performed six times a day). Separately, Milburn has written/arranged/orchestrated music for Watt?!? (Village Theatre) and The Behaviour of Broadus (CTG) and produced albums for musicals, singer-songwriters, and City Stomp: New York Music for New York Families. Vigoda has been a lyric doctor for countless Disney live events on two continents, and she toured the world with Cyndi Lauper and Joe Jackson as electric violinist, mandolinist and backup singer. Suffolk University will welcome Milburn to campus for a two day residency with musical theater students on March 26 and 27.

Plotkins is a professor and chair of the Suffolk University Theatre Department as well as artistic director of the Modern Theatre at Suffolk University and founding director of the Boston Music Theatre Project. She has been directing, producing and facilitating professional and student productions at Suffolk University for more than 30 years. She has championed new work both inside the department and as part of the Boston Music Theatre Project, making a specialty of developing new musicals.

Nicholas is an accomplished accompanist, performer, music director and educator and has appeared in Europe, Latin America and throughout the United States in solo and chamber performances. He has been heard on WBUR and WGBH Boston and with the Borromeo String Quartet and the United States Air Force Clarinet Ensemble, among others. He coaches musical theater students at Suffolk University. Plotkins and Nicholas have collaborated on many new musicals produced at Suffolk University, including Blood Wedding, Crossing Brooklyn and Voices for Now. Nicholas also was music director for Wes Savick's Car Talk: The Musical!!!

The scenic designer is Richard W. Chambers, the recipient of two Elliot Norton Awards and three Independent Reviewers of New England awards. He has designed more than 150 productions in the Northeast. Chambers is an associate professor of Theatre at Suffolk University.

The team also includes Nancy Leary, costume designer; Steven McIntosh, sound designer; and Kimberly Smith, lighting designer.

This is the third season for the Modern Theatre at Suffolk University, the newest performance space in the Washington Street Theater District. The grand facade of the historic theater, Boston's first designed specifically for showing movies, was painstakingly restored and reconstructed as part of the Modern Theatre and residence hall development. Inside, an intimate jewel-box theater showcases central design elements that are a modernization of some of the most distinctive historic features of the 1914 theater. The state-of-the-art, 185-seat venue is ideal for live performances, conversations, readings and film screenings and promotes excellence and innovation through all of its programming. For more about these and other programs at the Modern visit: www.moderntheatre.com.

Suffolk University, located in historic downtown Boston, with an international campus in Madrid, is a student-centered institution distinguished by excellence in education and scholarship. Suffolk University offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate programs in more than 90 areas of study. Its mission is to empower graduates to be successful locally, regionally and globally.

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