Environmental Musical RACHEL Comes to NY Summerfest Tonight

Environmental musical Rachel has just been announced as an official selection of the 2017 NY Summerfest.

This timely environmental drama was written by native New Jersey brother-and-sister writing team Jessie Field (book and lyrics) and Jared Field (music). Rachel was a participant in NYMF's 2014 Developmental Reading Series and a winner of four awards at the 2015 Fresh Fruit Festival.

This new ninety-minute version of the play is incredibly intimate, thoughtfully pared down to a cast of four women and off-stage male voices. Ari Laura Kreith, the Artistic Director of Theatre 167, directs a talented crew: Erin Fish, Rebecca Muller, Lipica Shah*, and AMIE BERMOWITZ*. Rachel Dean music directs.

Rachel is an original musical about the life of biologist and nature writer Rachel Carson. Author of "Silent Spring," which sparked the modern environmental movement, Carson led an extraordinary life. Struggling to find her place in the world as a scientist and a woman, her skill as a writer eventually brings her success and critical acclaim. However, when the destructive nature of DDT and other new pesticides is brought to her attention Carson jeopardizes her success, her health, and most importantly the deep relationship she shares with her neighbor Dorothy Freeman to take a stand for the earth. Rachel was presented as a developmental reading at the 2014 New York Musical Theater Festival, and was the recipient of four Fruitie awards, including Outstanding Musical, at the 2015 Fresh Fruit Festival.

Rachel will be presented on August 15th at 6:15pm, August 19th at 8:30pm, and August 20th at 1pm. It will be performed at the Hudson Guild Theater at 441 W 26th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues), New York, NY 10001. Tickets are $23 and available now by visiting www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2954337.

Visit www.newyorktheaterfestival.com for more information about the Festival, or www.rachelmusical.com for more information about the show.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Ari Laura Kreith is a theatre director and the Artistic Director of Theatre 167, where she conceived and directed The Jackson Heights Trilogy: 167 TONGUES, YOU ARE NOW THE OWNER OF THIS SUITCASE, and JACKSON HEIGHTS 3AM (PBS Pick-of-the-Week) - three full-length plays collaboratively written by 18 playwrights featuring 37 actors in 93 roles in 14 languages, inspired by the world's most diverse neighborhood.

Other Theatre 167 projects include Antu Yacob's MOURNING SUN, which premiered at Theatre 167 and toured to the Kampala International Theatre Festival in Uganda, J.Stephen Brantley's PIRIRA, set simultaneously in Malawi and New York, which received the 2014 NYIT Award for Outstanding Premiere Production Of A Play and transferred Off-Broadway, and the multi-writer CHURCH OF WHY NOT, inspired by an interfaith activist community.

Commissions include three pieces for Queens Theatre's WORLDS FAIR PLAYS (NY Times Critics' Pick,) I LIKE TO BE HERE: JACKSON HEIGHTS REVISITED, or, THIS IS A MANGO at the New Ohio for the Obie-winning Theatre:Village Festival, and the National Geographic-sponsored HOW WE ARE CONNECTED at Brooklyn Museum and El Museo del Barrio. Musical theatre highlights include DREAMHOUSE, which she also co-created, and the European premiere of Adam Guettel's MYTHS AND HYMNS.

She has crafted immersive, site-specific projects for Queens Museum, the NY Transit Museum, and most recently, collaborated with Marina Budhos on a street theatre adaptation of her novel WATCHED, which explores the impact of surveillance on Muslim-American communities.

Upcoming projects include the world premiere of Tina Howe's SINGING BEACH at HERE Arts Center, a workshop of a new musical about environmentalist Rachel Carson, and ASK ME NO QUESTIONS, a one-woman show about teens and deportation which she is co-creating with performer Lipica Shah.

Ari received the 2016 LPTW Lucille Lortel Award in recognition of her work as a director and the body of work Theatre 167 has created under her leadership.

BA: Yale University. MFA: UC Davis.

RACHEL DEAN is a composer, pianist, and music director originally from Iowa. An ASCAP award recipient, she is a graduate of NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and works as a rehearsal pianist for Hamilton. Her musicals include: Medusa (with Wes Braver), The Anxiety Project (with David Brush), and The Ballad of Janis Matthews and the Dodo Scouts (with Giancarlo Rodaz).

JESSIE FIELD is a director and playwright, and college graduate from Brandeis University. Favorite directing credits include Proof, Into the Woods, My Romantic History, and Enron. Jessie is a founding member of The Crossroad Players, a professional company of Brandeis alumni focused on giving opportunities to young artists, and served as the company's President and Artistic Director. She spent last year in California, completing the Directing Apprenticeship at Capital Stage. There Jessie served as AD for A Doll's House and The Totalitarians. She also had the honor of directing her fellow apprentices in their showcase, Subculture.

Jessie's experience as a playwright includes writing the book and lyrics for Harold! The Musical, a one-act original musical and grant recipient in the 2009 Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Arts, and the book and lyrics for Rachel, which was a recipient of the Harold and Mimi Steinberg prize for Best Original Play and the winner of Outstanding Musical at the 2015 Fresh Fruit Festival awards. Other completed works include To The West, a family-friendly feminist tale of adventuring Vikings, and La Maupin, another musical collaboration with her brother, Jared, about swordswoman and opera singer Julie d'Aubigny.

JARED FIELD is a composer, conductor, music educator and clarinetist. His works have been read and performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble, The New York Virtuoso Singers, and by hundreds of students and campers across the country. In addition to his classical works, Jared has written the music for Harold! the Musical, Rachel, and La Maupin. Rachel was awarded the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Prize for Best Original Play, an Official Selection of the 2014 New York Musical Theatre Festival Developmental Reading program, and the winner of Outstanding Play in the 2015 Fresh Fruit Festival.

Jared received his BA in Music Composition from Brandeis University, where he earned Highest Honors and graduated Summa Cum Laude. He graduated with an MA in Music and Music Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Composition teachers include David Rakowski, MeLinda Wagner, Marty Boykan, and Richard Pearson Thomas.

Jared was selected as a participant in the September 2014 installation of "The Choreography Lab," for which he and choreographer Rachel Lauria created the dance piece "Timeless". He was also a participant of the 2016 ACDA-Lehigh University Choral Composers Forum, and the 2017 Choral Chameleon Institute. Jared has also performed as a clarinetist with the Columbia University Orchestra, The Secret Opera, and Apotheosis Opera. Jared was a corps member at City Year New Hampshire from 2011 to 2012, serving as a math and English tutor in a third grade classroom. While there, Jared conducted the school chorus and led them in rehearsals, created and taught after school classes on subjects ranging from music to science, and wrote a new school song. Jared has also worked as a counselor and domain guest at Beam Camp, where he created several week-long music programs for campers in which students performed works by John Cage, created their own pieces using invented notation, and collaborated on the production of an original opera. Jared is currently the director of middle school music at Worcester Academy in Worcester, MA. He is a recipient of the Andrew J. O'Connell Award for teaching.

For more information, visit: www.jfieldmusic.com.

*These Actors are appearing courtesy of Actors' Equity Association.

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