Beautiful Soup Theatre Collective Presents CROSSING BROOKLYN 1/27

The Beautiful Soup Theater Collective is presenting "Crossing Brooklyn," with music by Larson Award-winner Jenny Giering (Alice Unwrapped, Saint-Ex, The Mistress Cycles) and Book and Lyrics by Kleban Award-winner Laura Harrington (N Bonaparte, Resurrection, Alice Unwrapped). Set in New York City in 2002, "Crossing Brooklyn" tells the story of Des and AJ, young, idealistic public school teachers bent on changing the world, one kid at a time. Life is full of promise and endless possibility until Des begins to unravel under the weight of her fears, ignited that fateful September day. Splitting apart under the strain, Des and AJ struggle to find their way back to each other. This innovative production will use original multimedia film pieces by filmmaker Brian Oh (Deeproot Films) to help tell Des' and AJ's stories.

Giering and Harrington's musical premiered at The Transport Group in 2007 and was directed by Jack Cummings III. Since then, the musical has undergone several rewrites. This will be Steven Carl McCasland's second time directing a workshop of the project, after a Pace University run in 2008. McCasland is founder and Artistic Director of The Beautiful Soup Theater Collective. Beautiful Soup has a mission to revisit three classical plays (Greek, Elizabethan and American-classic [O'Neill, Miller, Williams, etc]) with an innovative twist in each annual season. The company will also produce a workshop of a new play or musical each year, in addition to readings and one-night-only theatrical events. Beautiful Soup has a desire to be an active part of the charitable community in New York. Working with tri-state area organizations (like BC/EFA, The Fortune Society, A-STEP, Prison Families Anonymous and Gay Men's Health Crisis, to name a few), the Collective chooses charities that relates to the production and donates a portion of the box office proceeds to helping them reach their goal.

Performances begin on Thursday, January 27th at 8:00pm at The Michael Chekhov Theater @ The 45th Street Theatre at 354 West 45th Street, 2nd Floor. The subsequent evening performances are Friday and Saturday, along with a 2:00pm matinee on both Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are $18.00 and are available online now at http://beautifulsoup.showclix.com/. A portion of box-office proceeds will benefit A-STEP (Artists Striving to End Poverty), founded by Tony Award-winning musical director and orchestrator Mary-Mitchell Campbell (Crossing Brooklyn, Company, next to normal, The Addams Family). A special educational matinee will be presented on Thursday the 27th at 11:00am.

The cast includes Elisabeth Ness as Des Delaria, Charlie Duncan as AJ Delaria, Emily Floyd as Madeline (Ophelia in Beautiful Soup's HAMLET), Logan Riley Bruner as Kevin, Court Stroud as Bobby, Peter Waugh as Jimmy, and Rory Allan Meditz (the title role in Beautiful Soup's HAMLET) as Travis. The production team includes Jana Mallo as the Publicity Manager, Kate Adler as the Dramaturgist, Andrew Slater as the Stage Manager, Allison Wilmer as the Assistant Director, and Steven Carl McCasland (Beautiful Soup's HAMLET, Group Therapy Production's Death of a Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire, Falsettos, Antigone, Medea and more) as Production and Musical Director.

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