Photos: Cast and Creatives of LAST CALL Meets The Press

Last Call begins previews at New World Stages, Stage 5 on March 12, with opening night set for March 16. The cast of Last Call, including Helen Schneider, Lucca Züchner, and Victor Petersen, as well as playwright Peter Danish, and director Gil Mehmert, recently met the press. Check out photos below!

For half a century, American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein and Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan were the world's most celebrated figures in classical music – and the fiercest of rivals. Their influence transcended music into popular culture, politics, and almost every facet of the modern landscape. Late in their lives these titans of classical music unexpectedly crossed paths one last time at the Sacher Hotel in Vienna. Inspired by true events, Last Call brings us to this meeting as both men struggle to find common ground through their music and their lives over one last drink. The play mixes storytelling and music, giving audience members a glimpse into the complex minds of these two music titans.

Von Karajan was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years. He helped found the London’s Philharmonia Orchestra in 1948, and in 1955 he became music director of the Berlin Philharmonic. A Nazi Party member from 1933 to 1942, Karajan was exonerated by an Allied tribunal after World War II, but his American debut in 1955 precipitated public protests.

Bernstein, on the opposite end of the spectrum, was Jewish, and made his New York Philharmonic conducting debut in 1943. He went on to compose the scores of On the Town, Wonderful Town, Candide, and West Side Story. He made his conducting debut with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1966, beginning a lifelong relationship with the orchestra.

Photo Credit: Genevieve Rafter Keddy