Prospect Theater Company Presents SOUVENIR STORIES, Closes 7/31

Prospect Theater Company (Cara Reichel, Producing Artistic Director / Melissa Huber, Managing Director) presents two summer laboratory performances of new work by some of NYC's most exciting musical theater writers:
SOUVENIR STORIES - Eight Original Short Works
from Prospect's 2011 Musical Theater Lab
July 27 - 31, 2011: Wed, Thurs, Sat @ 8pm; Sun @ 3pm

ALTER EGO - A New Teen Musical Revue
July 28 - 30, 2011: Thurs @ 4pm, Fri @ 8pm, Sat @ 2pm
Both shows will be performed in the Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street). Tickets to SOUVENIR STORIES are $18 and tickets to ALTER EGO are $10. (All tickets are subject to an additional $1.25 theater restoration fee.) Tickets may be purchased by calling 212-239-6200 or 800-432-7250, visiting www.ProspectTheater.org or www.Telecharge.com, or by visiting the Theatre Row Box Office, open 12pm until 8pm daily.

SOUVENIR STORIES:
A watch, a margarita glass, a coin, a bar of soap, and more! From the sacred to the profane, unexpected and uncensored, SOUVENIR STORIES explores how simple objects can capture our memories and hold our meaningful experiences. During the month of June, eight writing teams were challenged to create short musicals inspired by randomly selected souvenirs. This July, these original pieces have been workshopped and will be performed by a cast featuring some of Prospect's favorite talents.

The program features short original musicals written by: Melanie Bean & Betsy Hulick, Jonathan Breit & Greg Edwards, Phillip Chernyak & Blake Hackler, David Finkle & Ned Paul Ginsburg, John Herin & Frederick Alden Terry, Eric March, Susan Murray & Clay Zambo, and Jay Alan Zimmerman. Detailed writer bios follow.

SOUVENIR STORIES is directed by Dev Bondarin, and music directed by Daniel Feyer. The cast includes Jason Collins (Once Upon a Time in New Jersey, The Blue Flower), Sarah Corey (Illyria), Piper Goodeve (The Pursuit of Persephone), Christine Toy Johnson (Honor), Whitney Kam Lee (Honor, Evergreen), Mark Mozingo (Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge, The Hidden Sky), José Restrepo (Broadway's Grease), and Darcy Yellin (Once Upon a Time in New Jersey). Stage Management is by Kristine Ayers. Prospect's annual Musical Theater Lab is curated by Dev Bondarin and Cara Reichel.

ALTER EGO:

What makes us who we are? When are the moments that we each discover our true abilities? How do we overcome challenges to discover our individual and special powers? In ALTER EGO, the 15 talented teens from Prospect Theater Company's 2011 Music Theater Summer Intensive explore questions of character in a new musical revue, featuring an array of original material by emerging musical theatre writers.

Performed by: Vivian Belosky, Miranda Cornell, Miranda Fayne, Aegis Duensing, Emrys Duensing, Tristan Gillia, Vassileia Kazee, Maria Kogarova, Christopher Kolwicz, Fiona McSweeney-Glynn, Brandon Ocasio, Alexa Ringer, Isabel Robin, Oona Roche, Carol Szwei. Directed by Dev Bondarin, Rachel Dart, Simone Zamore, and Cara Reichel. Music directed by Brandon Sturiale.

Souvenir Stories - Writer Biographies

Melanie Bean has composed for theater, film, modern dance and instrumental chamber groups, in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a background in acting, she is developing several musical theater projects. Member: Dramatists Guild and Actors' Equity. Attended the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.

Jonathan Breit is a composer and pianist living in New York City. Recent compositions include The Rivals (BMI, Lively Productions), written with Greg Edwards, The Senator and the Slave Girl (Yale University), and The Awkward Stage (Golden Fleece series), written with Leah Maddrie. Recent work as pianist and music director includes A Fine Romance (92nd Street Y), The Gay Ivy (Hot Fest at Dixon Place), BJ: A Musical Romp (Planet Connections Festivity), and Jurassic Parq: The Broadway Musical (Fringe Festival). He holds degrees from Yale College and Mannes College of Music.

Phillip Chernyak is a songwriter and filmmaker whose musical short films have been screened in Stockholm, Los Angeles, and everywhere in between. By day Phil works as a television editor, cutting shows for MTV, Discovery Channel, History Channel and more. He is currently a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in New York City.

Greg Edwards Book and Lyrics: The Rivals (Lively Productions), The Discontented Grasshopper (Center Theatre), Taking the Plunge (Samuel French OOB Festival, NYMF), songs with Marvin Hamlisch (White House, Mr. Hamlisch's holiday tour). Plays: Crowded House (State Theatre of Chicago), Everaftering (78th Street Theatre Lab, Acting Out). Games: Jessica Plunkenstein and the Düsseldorf Conspiracy (PC Gamer UK, NYT Best Adventure Game), The Judgment of Quintus (in development). Ebb Award (2nd place 2010). Yale (Phi Beta Kappa), BMI. www.greged.com

David Finkle is a New York City-based lyricist. He began his Manhattan writing career contributing to Julius Monk's Plaza-9 revues and Ron Warren's "Upstairs at the Downstairs" revues.

Ned Paul Ginsburg has earned composing honors from the NEA, NARAS, IAJE, SGA, and Downbeat magazine. Commissioned theater pieces include They Chose Me and Fashion Statement for TADA!, A Talmud Tale for Maqom, and Arnie!, The TV Musical for Silver Burdett Ginn. With David Finkle: Kiss Me Guido and The Love Report. Recent collaboration: Boynton Beach Club (w/Colby & Seidelman). Musical theater workshops: BMI, ASCAP, and New Dramatists. Ned orchestrates other theater composers' music, happily.

Blake Hackler Member of the BMI/Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Writing Workshop; 2010 participant of the Dramatist Guild Intensive; 2009 recipient of the Harrington Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre Writing. Plays and musicals have appeared in New York and Chicago. MFA, Yale School of Drama. He holds faculty positions at Yale University and the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU.

John Herin is a bookwriter, lyricist, and percussionist. He has frequently collaborated with composer Frederick Alden Terry. Their creations include an opera, Ethan Frome, and three short musicals for Prospect Theater Company, AVAC Memories, Improvisation, and CindeRelativity. Their rock musical, The Passion of George W. Bush, co-authored with Adam Mathias, premiered at the New York International Fringe Festival in 2004. John attended Brown University and the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at N.Y.U./Tisch.

Betsy Hulick AEA actress, prize-wining translator, and writer with a strong interest in Russian language and literature. Her translations include Chekhov's major plays and vaudevilles (Bantam World Classics), narrative poems by Alexander Pushkin (Fence, Cardinal Points), and Gogol's Inspector General on Broadway. Fellowships at Yaddo, the VCCA, Ragdale, among others, and several residencies abroad. Past member of the BMI lyricists' workshop. This is her second collaboration with Melanie Bean, with whom she worked last year on Bible Cabaret.

Eric March is a composer, lyricist, and playwright whose work has been performed at Ars Nova (Songs About Real Life), FringeNYC (Granola: The Musical) and many tiny bars (Many Other Things). He is a member of Youngblood, Ensemble Studio Theatre's group for emerging professional playwrights and the BMI Musical Theater Writing Workshop. His latest musical, The Bone Wars (with Jeff Bienstock and Patrick Link,) was the recipient of an EST/Sloan commission in April, 2011.

Susan Murray is a member of the BMI Workshop, (Advanced and Librettists) and a two-time recipient of the BMI Jerry Harrington Award, Susan's collaborating with Clay Zambo on Greenbrier Ghost, a new musical based on a little-known 1879 murder case which won ANMT's Award for Best Emerging Musical (2009) and premiered at Spirit of Broadway (Norwich CT) in 2010. Susan co-wrote the song "My Thing" (with Martin Fernandi) which was recently published in the first BMI Workshop Songbook.

Frederick Alden Terry received an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU. His music has been featured in theater, concert halls, dance, and film, including Prospect Theater Company, and FringeNYC. He has written several projects with John Herin, including their opera, Ethan Frome, and AVAC Memories, featured in Roosevelt Island 's Fast Trash exhibit in 2010 at in Prospect's Map Quest in 2009. He is also writing Divine Sarah with Robert Michael Morris, and contributing to The Unfortunate Squirrel by Sonya Sobieski.

Clay Zambo wrote music and lyrics for Greenbrier Ghost (Susan Murray, book, Spirit of Broadway Theatre, CT) and Post Modern Living (Richard Sheinmel, book, LaMaMa), included in the anthology Plays and Playwrights 2011, as well as over a dozen musicals for family audiences. Lyrics: A Mother's Carol (with Scott Ethier), winner American Composer's Forum's choral-writing competition, recorded by VocalEssence, and is published by Boosey & Hawkes; also Shlemiel Crooks, Merkin Hall NYC. Forthcoming: Windjammers, In the Minds of Olympians (Stages Festival 2011). Member: BMI, Dramatists Guild. Alumnus: Ohio University HTC.

Jay Alan Zimmerman is composer/author of several musicals including his Incredibly Deaf Musical (O'Neill Center finalist, The Duke on 42nd St./NYMF 2010), My Cafe Cinderella (Arts & Artists), Smokin'!, The Madness Channel, and the award-winning short film musicals Pawns and Love Burns. Other projects: Art/Song (chashama Times Square), the plays Booth and Our Brutus (Edinburgh Fringe Fest winners), JAZ @ The Zipper (Zipper Factory Theatre), and Roboticus, a musical started during a residency with LEMUR musical robots. www.musicbyJAZ.com.

About Prospect Theater Company
Prospect Theater Company is a non-profit organization, founded in 1998 by five graduates of Princeton University, in order to allow a diverse group of emerging theater professionals to work together in pursuit of artistic excellence and innovation. Known both for its development of new musicals and its engaging interpretations of classic plays, Prospect strives to build bridges between artists and audiences, and to connect theater's present to its past-in order to build its future.

For more information on Prospect Theater Company, please visit www.ProspectTheater.org.

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