Human Race Festival of New Musical Brings Three Great Shows to Dayton

A wide realm of popular music will be coming to the stage at The Loft Theatre the weekend of August 5 - 7. With staged readings of shows based on a master composer of hit musicals and '50s pop hits, the jazz world of post-war Hollywood, and a rock movie, there will definitely be something for everyone at The 2011 Human Race Festival of New Musicals.

The master composer is Bob Merrill, who created the music for Funny Girl and Carnival and penned such pop chart-toppers as "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window" and "If I Knew You Were Coming I'd've Baked A Cake," even though he couldn't read or write music and composed his songs on a toy xylophone with numbers on the keys. Love Makes the World Go 'Round: The Songs of Bob Merrill is called a "Revusical" by book writer Duane Poole and arranger Brad Ellis - who will be familiar to all the fans of the hit TV show Glee as the choir accompanist who never speaks. Set in a piano bar, the show runs through famed Merrill creations from "People" and "Don't Rain on My Parade" to "Mambo Italiano," "Tina Marie" and "Honeycomb."

The jazz is in Play It Cool, a tale of five people in a secret 1953 Hollywood club called Mary's Hideaway. Conceived by Larry Dean Harris, with lyrics by Mark Winkler, music by Phillip Swann, book by Martin Casella and Larry Dean Harris, and directed by Sharon Rosen, Play It Cool features a noir feel and smoky hot jazz. Festival audiences will not only get a big kick out of the show, but get to be ahead of the in-crowd - the show is slated to open off-Broadway in the fall.

Then it's time to rock, with Pump Up the Volume, based on the 1990 movie starring Christian Slater, which, among other things, won the Golden Space Needle Award as the most popular film at the Seattle International Film Festival. The story of a teenage loner who starts a pirate FM station in his parents' basement is being presented by the Encore Theatre Company. Encore, an area community theatre dedicated to developing new musicals, is involved in the festival for the first time. Jeff Thompson wrote the music, Jordan Mann the lyrics, and Jeremy Desmon the book.

Encore will also have some additional activities at other locations, which are listed at www.encoretheatercompany.com.

Casts for the three shows are composed of top local and major city performers, and include Human Race Resident Artists Deb Colvin-Tener, Jamie Cordes and Katie Pees.

The schedule of performances, all at The Loft, is:

Friday, August 5 7pm Play It Cool
10pm Pump Up the Volume

Saturday, August 6 Noon Meet the writers, in The Loft Lobby
2pm Play It Cool
7pm Love Makes the World Go 'Round

Sunday, August 7 2pm Love Makes the World Go 'Round
7pm Pump Up the Volume

Tickets are $15 per performance in advance, $20 beginning August 5, and are available by calling Ticket Center Stage at (937) 228-3630, at www.ticketcenterstage.com , and at the Schuster Center Box Office, and at The Loft Box OffIce Two hours before each curtain.

The 2011 Human Race Festival of New Musicals is sponsored in part by the Producers' Circle and a grant from the Dramatists Guild Fund.

Metropolitan Arts Center in 1991, taking up residence at the 219-seat Loft Theatre. In addition to the Eichelberger Loft Season, The Human Race produces for the Victoria Theatre's Broadway Series, the Musical Theatre Workshop series, and special event programming. The Human Race, under the direction of Producing Artistic Director Kevin Moore, also maintains education and outreach programs for children, teens and adults, as well as artist residencies in area schools, The Muse Machine In-School Tour, and summer youth programs. Human Race organizational support is provided by Culture Works, Montgomery County Arts and Cultural District, Shubert Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council. The Ohio Arts Council helped fund this organization with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans. The Human Race's 25th Anniversary Season is sponsored by the Miriam Rosenthal Memorial Trust Fund.

 

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