Kevin Welch Collaborates on New Musical WILL THE CIRCLE, Slated for Chicago Music Theatre Festival

Aimee Mann is working on a musical with playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly)... Edie Brickell has just collaborated with Steve Martin (Bright Star)... and now the popular Texas-by-way-of-Nashville Americana artist Kevin Welch is collaborating with a Chicago playwright (L.C. Bernadine) on a new musical called WILL THE CIRCLE, which debuts August 20th as part of this year's Chicago Music Theatre Festival at Victory Gardens Theatre.

Kevin Welch has released eight albums, charted numerous singles on Billboard, and is one of the cofounders of the Dead Reckoning Records label. His songs have been recorded by Waylon Jennings, Ricky Skaggs, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless, the Highwaymen and dozens of others.

Featuring 12 songs by Welch, the new play by L.C. Bernadine follows a small group at a Chicago neighborhood block party -- young apartment dwellers lost amongst homeowners, each struggling to create the circle that may or may not ever end up including them. Unfortunately, creating the "micro-clan" they've heard is a trend for the coming decade ---along with bullet-proof houses and armored communities--- ends up involving just the tiniest bit of home invasion.

In an era of stress and fear, block parties are sometimes the beer-and-barbecue equivalent of 'Keep Calm and Carry On." But circling the wagons inevitably causes problems of its own, as the characters in WILL THE CIRCLE soon discover.

Directed by Vi Tran, Music Directed by T.J. Anderson. Featuring Gianna Clark, Justin Pierce, Jon Patrick Penick, Willa Sachs, Aaron Sarka and Evan Twichell, WILL THE CIRCLE will premiere as one of 14 new plays featured in the Chicago Music Theatre Festival, sponsored by Underscore Theatre, Victory Gardens, Bailiwick Theatre and CPA Theatricals in Chicago.

WILL THE CIRCLE has four performances: August 20, August 21, August 24 and August 28. Tickets and details at the festival website, cmtf.org.