SONGS OF PARADISE Opens Pasadena Playhouse's HOTHOUSE Staged Reading Series Tonight

The Pasadena Playhouse (Sheldon Epps, Artistic Director and Elizabeth Doran, Executive Director) announced the start of the 2013 - 2014 season of its HOTHOUSE at The Playhouse new play development, staged reading series. This staged reading series is produced and presented as a complimentary Playhouse program to continue to develop new work and revise and reinvigorate classics.

The season features the new musical Song of Paradise starring Dawnn Lewis (The Playhouse'sIntimate Apparel and Sister Act - The Musical) presented tonight (September 24) and tomorrow and Remnants of a Liquid World by Bianca Bagatourian, President of the Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance, presented October 22 and 23.

The 2013 - 2014 season of HOTHOUSE at The Playhouse features:

Song of Paradise
Book by Marcus Gardley
Music by Andrew Chukerman
Lyrics by Marcus Gardley and Andrew Chukerman
Directed by David Glenn Armstrong & Chris Bensinger

Starring Eric B. Anthony, Phillip Brandon, Carol Dennis, Jay Donnell, Shirell Ferguson-Coleman, Raquel Nicole Jeté, Joanna A. Jones, Dawnn Lewis, Kristolyn Lloyd, Raufel Muhammad, Lacy Darryl Phillips, Danielle Monè Truitt, and Harrison White

Tuesday & Wednesday, September 24 & 25 at 8:00 p.m.

"There is no greater importance in the development of a new piece of theater than that of a well produced reading. HOTHOUSE at The Playhouse allows for such and thus will leave an indelible mark on this great piece called Song of Paradise. It is with great anticipation and excitement that we see the first major step towards a full production and thank Courtney Harper, The Pasadena Playhouse, and HOTHOUSE at The Playhouse for this great opportunity," said Chris Bensinger, Co-Director and rights holder of Song of Paradise and Producer/Tony Award Winner for La Cage Aux Folles - Tony Award for Best revival of a Musical, Nice Work If You Can Get It - 10 Tony nominations, American Idiot - Tony Nomination for Best Musical, Chinglish - Time Magizine's top 10 plays of the year, and investor in The Book of Mormon.

Song of Paradise is about a young girl who goes in search of the father she never knew and finds herself along the way. Filled with spit, vinegar, and a voice that beckons legendary status, 16 year old Paradise leaves the desolate, dusty, Mississippi South and her Ma Meter for a glimmering imaginary Harlem Renaissance in big city New York. She arrives to find a foreign world dripping in fantastical color, music, and danger. Will the Count of Three spin his Shakespearean like magic over his Night Club of characters Afro'Diddy, Harmony, Orpheus, and The Grand Duke Ellington while danger looms inside a plot to spoil it all from the low down Downtown undertaker Eighties? Sabotage, jealousy, greed, lust, and love will decide the fate of Paradise in this poetic and lyrical new musical.

Remnants of a Liquid World
By Bianca Bagatourian
Directed by David Mancini
Tuesday & Wednesday, October 22 & 23 at 8:00 p.m. in the Carrie Hamilton Theatre

The 1979 revolution in Iran swept away the Shah's monarchy and brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power. It also swept away the lives of eight-hundred thousand children who were torn from their roots and are now strewn across the four corners of the globe. In their mid-forties now, they wrestle with memories of a lost world. This experimental play analyzes the psychological consequences of political turmoil and the root-less-ness that follows.

To RSVP for any of the HOTHOUSE at The Playhouse staged readings, visit http://www.pasadenaplayhouse.org/outreach-and-education/hothouse.html or call The Pasadena Playhouse box office at 626-356-7529.

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