Buck Creek Playhouse to Present BETWEEN THE LINES Next Month

Buck Creek Players will kick off their 51st season with a young adult musical on the mainstage. The 6 live in-person performances at the playhouse starting Friday, August 16th and running through Sunday, August 25th. Tickets are $20 for adults, and $18 for seniors and students. Tickets may be purchased at www.buckcreekplayers.com.

Buck Creek Players and Director Cathy Cutshall and Vocal Director Joseph Burke have announced their upcoming production of BETWEEN THE LINES with Music and Lyrics by Kate Anderson and Elyssa Samsel and Book by Timothy Allen McDonald and Jodi Picoult, based on the novel by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer.

BETWEEN THE LINES is an empowering and enchanting new musical for anyone who has ever sought to find their place in the world. An outsider in a new town and a new school, Delilah seeks comfort in the pages of her favorite book, where she feels heard and understood by the handsome Prince Oliver. But as the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur in both extraordinary and astonishing ways, Delilah discovers how to find her place in the real world while keeping her dreams alive.

BETWEEN THE LINES is presented by special arrangement with Music Theatre International. (mtishows.com).

For more information on this production visit the theater's website at www.buckcreekplayers.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Elyssa Samsel is a classically trained violinist and pianist. She trained at AMDA as an actress in musical theater. Alongside Kate Anderson, she composed the brand new musicals BETWEEN THE LINES: which premiered in NYC in 2022, and THE BOOK THIEF which toured in the UK last year. She and Kate Anderson were the inhouse songwriters for Central Park (Apple TV+), writing almost 50 songs across all three seasons. They also wrote the songs in Olaf's Frozen Adventure (Disney+). Elyssa has composed score elements for both Central Park and the 2019 film JoJo Rabbit. She recently composed the score for the 2024 Lionsgate feature film “Miller's Girl”, starring Martin Freeman and Jenna Ortega. The film premiered at the Palm Springs Film Festival and had a theatrical release in January 2024, and is now available for streaming on Netflix as of April 26th 2024.

Kate Anderson is a Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominate songwriter behind Apple TV's Central Park, Disney Animation's "Olaf's Frozen Adventure" (Annie nomination), the off-Broadway Musical "BETWEEN THE LINES", and "THE BOOK THIEF" which just played the Leicester Curve and Coventry's Belgrade Theatre in the UK. The same team just completed "Austenland", which is an adaptation of Shannon Hale's novel of the same title. Kate and Elyssa also contributed the musical episode "Duke the Musical" to Disney Animation's Zootopia + series.

Timothy Allen McDonald is an award-winning playwright (Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka, The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley, Jim Henson's Emmet Otter, Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach) adaptor of over 65 musicals (highlights include Guys and Dolls JR., Getting to Know...The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz YPE, and Les Miserables School Edition). McDonald is also an accomplished director (Dear Edwina produced by multi-Tony award winner Daryl Roth, and The Phantom Tollbooth at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts) and a leading authority on musical theater education. In 1996 McDonald was recruited by Freddie Gershon to develop Music Theatre International's Education Division, working side-by-side with theatrical greats including Cameron Mackintosh, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, Stephen Flaherty, Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Schwartz and Sheldon Harnick to create age-appropriate adaptations of musicals. In 1997 McDonald founded iTheatrics to continue and expand the work he began at MTI by developing educational musical theatre adaptations and resources for Tams-Witmark, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Samuel French. McDonald is the founder of the Junior Theater Festival, the world's largest festival exclusively dedicated to young people performing musical theater which is held annually in Atlanta, GA over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. Believing that every child everywhere should have access to quality arts programs, Tim has developed several nationwide initiatives which build sustainable musical theater programs in underserved schools. These programs include NBC's Smash Make A Musical, Educational Theatre Association's JumpStart Theater, New York City's Department of Education's Shubert Foundation/MTI Broadway Junior Program and The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities' Turnaround Arts Initiative. Tim has had the unique honor of seeing Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka performed at the White House for President and Mrs. Bush and directing Sarah Jessica Parker and a troupe of the most wonderful girls at the first ever White House Talent Show for President and Mrs. Obama. For more information check out iTheatrics.com.

JODI PICOULT is the #1 bestselling author of 29 novels, with 40 million copies sold worldwide. In August, her thirtieth novel, By Any Other Name, will be published. Five novels were made into movies, and five more - A Spark of Light, Wish You Were Here, The Book of Two Ways, Small Great Things, and Mad Honey -- are in development. She is the recipient of many awards, including the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, the Alex Awards from the YALSA, a lifetime achievement award for mainstream fiction from the Romance Writers of America, the NH Literary Award for Outstanding Literary Merit and esteemed Sarah Josepha Hale Award. Picoult is also the co-librettist, with Timothy Allen McDonald, of several musicals: Between The Lines (Off-Broadway, 2021); Breathe (2020), chosen as part of the Library of Congress COVID-19 Artist Response Collection; The Book Thief (UK, 2022/23), based on the international bestselling novel by Markus Zusak; and Austenland (in development). .She lives in New Hampshire with her husband.

HISTORY OF BUCK CREEK PLAYERS

Buck Creek Players began in 1973 when the Franklin Township Civic League and a group of local residents formed a committee to present performing arts under the name of "Four C's Theatre." On November 13, 1974, the name was changed to Buck Creek Players, Inc., andwas formalized under the Indiana Not for Profit Corporation Act of 1971 (501(c)3).

Initially, Buck Creek Players performed in elementary and high schools, and in October of 1978, moved to its first home, a historic church located at 7820 Acton Road. The church was built in 1872 with an addition in 1952. The main space of the building was the sanctuary which was 31 feet wide by 48 feet deep, with the stage using one-half of the space and the seating using the other half. The space enabled BCP to offer performing arts in an intimate setting for a maximum of 90 people. In 2002, the church was sold to United Faith Baptist Church.

In 2001, Buck Creek Players moved into its current home, the Buck Creek Playhouse, at 11150 Southeastern Avenue. The current space was originally built as an indoor tennis facility that was later converted into a church. Much of the space was rebuilt to accommodate the productions it would now house. While increasing capacity, the space is still intimate, seating a maximum of 130 people.  

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