PREMIERES
IN ASSOCIATION WITH PRIMARY STAGES
PRESENTS
INNER VOICES:
SOLO MUSICALS
2010

APRIL 2 – 24, 2010

A PART OF PRIMARY STAGES SPRING CELEBRATION CELEBRATING 25 YEARS WITH 25 DAYS OF EVENTS

AT 59E59 THEATERS

New York, NY: (February 25, 2010) PREMIERES (Paulette Haupt, Artistic Director/Producer), in association with Primary Stages (Casey Childs, Founder & Executive Producer; Andrew Leynse, Artistic Director; Elliot Fox, Managing Director) has announced a special 4-week celebration of events including Inner Voices: Solo Musicals, with the premieres of two one-act solo musicals: Mosaic with Book & Lyrics by Cheri Steinkellner and Music & Lyrics by Georgia Stitt, and Whida Peru: Resurrection Tangle with Book & Lyrics by David Simpatico and Music by Josh Schmidt.

Performances begin Friday, April 2, 2010 for a limited engagement through Saturday, April 24, 2010 at Primary Stages at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues).

In 2008, PREMIERES embarked on a new initiative in keeping with its mission to support creative talent, and produced Inner Voices: Solo Musicals at the Zipper Factory Theater. Three new pieces by Ellen Fitzhugh & Michael John LaChiusa, Laura Harrington & Jenny Giering and Michele Lowe & Scott Davenport Richards were presented, featuring Victoria Clark, Jennifer Damiano and Barbara Walsh. Inner Voices: Solo Musicals, inspired by Alan Bennett's "Talking Heads," introduced a new genre of theater that unites the spoken monologue into a tapestry of lyrics and music.

Mosaic, by Cheri Steinkellner & Georgia Stitt, is a multi-media, real-time half hour in the life –and on the MacBook – of Ruth, a woman vlogging at the crossroads of birth, death, love and Diet Coke.

Whida Peru: Resurrection Tangle, by David Simpatico & Josh Schmidt, brings us into the chambers of a very special creature, as she is forced to evaluate the quality of life, death and what lies in between for her.

Jonathan Butterell directs both new works. Casting and artistic staff will be disclosed shortly in a second announcement.

Inner Voices: Solo Musicals will play a sixteen-performance schedule between April 2 and 24.

Single tickets are priced at $30 with $20 tickets available to Primary Stages subscribers and 59E59 Members and may be purchased by calling Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200, online at www.ticketcentral.com, or in person at the 59E59 THEATERS Box Office. Please visit the website at www.primarystages.org, or call (212) 840-9705 for additional information.

BIOS

Josh Schmidt (Music, Whida Peru) Credits include Adding Machine and A Minister's Wife (as Composer/Sound Designer) – Broadway : The Neil Simon Plays (with Fitz Patton). Off-Broadway: Lincoln Center, MCC Theater, 59E59, Jean Cocteau. Chicago: Steppenwolf, Writers Theatre (Artistic Associate), Northlight, Next, Seanachai, many others... Regional: Over 100 productions. Awards: Lortel, Outer Critics, Jeff, NEA/TCG Career Development Program. ASCAP.

David Simpatico (Book & Lyrics, Whida Peru) adapted both High School Musical 1 and 2 for Disney Theatricals. His new musical comedy, Cruel Shoes (music by Ross Patterson) is a backstage musical about a chorus boy serial killer. His award-winning The Screams of Kitty Genovese (score by Will Todd), completed a sold-out run at the Sage Gateshead Concert Hall, Newcastle. Adaptation commissions include: Truman Capote?s In Cold Blood, Disney?s Alice in Wonderland, Ernst Lubitsch?s Trouble in Paradise with the Hourglass Group. David was a Featured Interview in George Hickenlooper?s gay and lesbian documentary Out in the City.
Cheri Steinkellner (Book & Lyrics, Mosaic) multiple Emmys, Golden Globes, People?s Choice, BAFTA, Writers Guild, and Parents Choice Awards, as writer for TV?s “Cheers,” and Teacher’s Pet. For stage, Bookwriter: Sister Act (with Bill Steinkellner, Alan Menken, Glenn Slater); Princesses (with Steinkellner, Matthew Wilder, David Zippel); Jailbirds On Broadway (with Steinkellner and Jeff Rizzo); book and new lyrics: Hello! My Baby (with Georgia Stitt). Film: Teacher’s Pet. Other TV: “Jeffersons,” “Benson,” “Facts of Life,” “Family Ties,” “Who?s The Boss,” “Bob, Hope” and “Gloria.” Other stage: award-winning Our Place; and Instaplay (L.A.?s original improvised musical). Cheri appears as Danny B?s mom in Dorm Life. She directs youth theater and teaches at UCSB in Santa Barbara, CA.

Georgia Stitt (Music & Lyrics, Mosaic) wrote the musicals Big Red Sun, The Water, Sing Me A Happy Song, and is currently writing Hello My Baby with Cheri Steinkellner and Devil In A Blue Dress with Walter Mosley. Her album, This Ordinary Thursday, and her song cycle, Alphabet City Cycle, are both available from PS Classics and iTunes. Georgia published several choral pieces and wrote two songs for the MTV movie The American Mall. She is represented on the solo albums of Susan Egan, Lauren Kennedy, Daniel Boys, Kevin Odekirk and Caroline Sheen. As Musical Director: Little Shop of Horrors, Avenue Q, Sweet Smell of Success, The Music Man, Titanic, Annie and the national tour of Parade, where she met husband composer Jason Robert Brown.

Jonathan Butterell (Director, Mosaic & Whida Peru) recently directed the world premiere of Michael John LaChiusa and Sybille Pearson?s Giant, based on Edna Ferber?s sweeping American novel, at the Signature Theatre as part of their New American Voices commission program. He created Musical Staging for the 2005 Tony Award Winning The Light in the Piazza and the 2004 Tony Award winning Assassins. He choreographed the 2003 Tony Award winning Nine revival, starring Antonio Banderas & Chita Rivera (for whom he created a tango!), as well as the London Donmar Warehouse, Buenos Aires and Tokyo productions of Nine, all directed by David Leveaux. Additional Broadway credits include the Fiddler on the Roof revival for which he re-produced the original Jerome Robbins choreography, and new musical staging. Additional NY: musical staging for the original workshop of Stephen Sondheim?s Wise Guys (director Sam Mendes) at New York Theater Workshop; Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty?s A Man of No Importance (director Joe Mantello, Lincoln Center Theatre Company), musical staging to Michael John LaChiusa?s See What I Wanna See (Williamstown Theatre Festival and the Public Theatre in New York City) and the musical staging for the 50th Anniversary celebration of the Public Theatre titled Public Sings! (City Center). He also directed Victoria Clark in Michael John LaChiusa and Ellen Fitzhugh?s Tres Niñas,
commissioned as part of Inner Voices: Solo Musicals (Zipper Factory). Upcoming: Choreography for She Loves Me, directed by Mark Lamos at the Westport Country Playhouse.

In his native England stage credits at the Donmar Warehouse include Company (director Sam Mendes, West End transfer); Habeas Corpus and Into The Woods (co-directed with John Crowley); How I Learned To Drive; The Maids and Electra starring Zoe Wanamaker (Broadway transfer); he devised and directed Michael Ball in Alone Together -- “Divas at the Donmar” (also at the Royal Haymarket Theatre in London). Associate Director: Othello at Royal National Theatre (director Sam Mendes) and Hamlet at Royal Shakespeare Company (director Stephen Pimlott). He co-directed Peter Pan (Royal Festival Hall) and Sweeney Todd (Opera North), and Sondheim?s Passion (director Jeremy Sams, West End). Internationally he directed both Orpheus Descending and Strindberg?s Creditors for Theatre Project Tokyo. Film credits include choreography for Finding Neverland starring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet (7 Academy Award nominations) and Stay starring Ewan McGregor (both directed by Marc Forster).

PREMIERES is a non-profit theater organization whose mission is to create new partnerships among exceptional writers and composers and commission, develop and present their works on the non-commercial stage. Since 2001, it has supported and presented new works by Ed Dixon, Darrah Cloud, Kim D. Sherman, Noa Ain, Gerard Edery, Maryrose Wood, Andrew Gerle, Daniel Frederick Levin, Jonathan Portera, Sam Carner, Derek Gregor and Lauren Robert at various performance venues in New York City. To learn more about PREMIERES, please visit our website at www.premieresnyc.org.

Primary Stages was founded in 1984 as a New York State non-profit theater company with the mission of producing new plays and nurturing the development of playwrights. In our 25 seasons we have produced over 100 world and New York premieres of plays by such playwrights as Brooke Berman, Lee Blessing, Charles Busch, Constance Congdon, A.R. Gurney, Michael Hollinger, Willy Holtzman, Tina Howe, David Ives, Julia Jordan, Romulus Linney, Michele Lowe, Donald Margulies, Melissa Manchester, Terrence McNally, Connor McPherson, John Henry Redwood, Lanie Robertson, John Patrick Shanley and Mac Wellman. We seek to provide a supportive environment where writers are encouraged to explore the scope of their creative vision. Our productions and our artists have received considerable critical acclaim including Tony, Obie, AUDELCO, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel (Outstanding Body of Work), Drama League, Drama Desk, Helen Hayes (Washington, DC), L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation and Joseph Jefferson (Chicago) awards and nominations. Lincoln Center Theater, by special arrangement with Primary Stages, recently produced Horton Foote?s Dividing the Estate on Broadway at the Booth Theatre. Primary Stages continues to nurture playwrights through commissions, our weekly PrimeTime Reading Series and our emerging playwrights development program, The Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group, now in its 14th year. We offer a wide array of classes and workshops at Primary Stages School of Theater, host free matinee performances for NYC public high school students, and enhance student appreciation of the theater through in-school programming with our Primary Voices program. Primary Stages is honored to be the Resident Theater Company at 59E59 Theaters since its inauguration in 2004. 59E59 Theaters is a state of the art theater complex on Manhattan?s East side which provides a home to numerous visiting companies, theater festivals, and artists throughout the year. www.59e59.org. To learn more about Primary Stages please visit our website at www.primarystages.org.