THEATER
FORTHE NEW CITY SETS SAIL
WITH
"PYRATES! THE COURTSHIP CHRONICLES"
A NEW MUSICAL BY AWARD WINNING PLAYWRIGHT
BARBARA KAHN AND COMPOSER JAY KERR
Theater for the New City (TNC), not-for-profit,
Pulitzer Prize-winning center for new American plays,
proudly announces the premiere of PYRATES! The CourtShip
Chronicles. Book and lyrics by Barbara Kahn; music and
musical direction by Jay Kerr; directed by Lisa Marjorie
Barnes and Barbara Kahn. April 15 - May 9, Thursdays -
Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 3pm. Tickets are $10 with
group rates available. Post-performance party on Sunday
April 18 is $25, including ticket price. Theater for the
New City. 155 First Ave (at 10th St). Res/info: 212-254-1109.
www.theaterforthenewcity.net.
Pyrates! The CourtShip Chronicles
is based on the exploits of real-life pirates Anne Bonny,
Mary Read and Calico Jack Rackham in 1720 Jamaica. This
tale of love, lust and revenge among non-traditional people
is told in the traditional American musical art form.
PYRATES! captures the diversity of the population of Jamaica,
including an escaped slave (Maroon), a Sephardic Jew,
a multi-racial tavern owner, a colonial bureaucrat and
a gay male shopkeeper. With Andi Hogan, Nicola Barber,
Sean Seibert, Uzo Aduba, Andrew Fitzgerald Graham, Jesse
Liebman, Tony Javed, Jonathan Ross, Iris Blasi, Janet
Huege, Keith Batza, Nate Rubin and Shay Ansari. Set design
by Mark Marcante, lighting design by Stewart Wagner, costumes
by Carla Gant.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY (TNC) produces
30-40 premieres of new American plays per year. Many influential
theater artists of the last quarter century have found
TNC's Resident Theater Program instrumental to their careers,
among them Sam Shepard, Moises Kaufman, Richard Foreman,
Charles Busch, Maria Irene Fornes, Miguel Piņero and Academy
Award Winners Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody. TNC produced
the Yangtze Repertory Company's 1997 production of BETWEEN
LIFE AND DEATH, the only play by Gao Xingjian produced
in America before he won the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature.
TNC productions have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
and over 40 OBIE Awards for excellence.
BARBARA KAHN's plays have been produced
in the US, France and Germany. She has directed in New
York, Paris and at the National Theatre in London. TNC
has been the New York City home for her plays since 1994.
Barbara was honored with the 1995 Torch of Hope Award,
following past recipients Terrence McNally, John Guare,
August Wilson, Horton Foote and A.R. Gurney. She received
an unprecedented three consecutive production grants from
the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation in support of gay-positive
theater based in history. www.barbara-kahn.com.
JAY KERR arranges music, works with songwriters
on new projects, instructs singers for stage, cabaret
and recording (www.jaykerr.com), and writes songs and
incidental music for the theater. With Robert Duke, Jay
was founder and facilitator of a writers' workshop for
the Princeton Triangle Club. His catalogue of cabaret
songs written with the late Arthur Kirson can be accessed
through www.milliondreamsmusic.com. WAR BONDS, written
with Barbara Kahn, is available at www.originalcastrecords.com.
His musical adaptations (music and lyrics) for Theater
for Young Audiences include ARTHUR! A BOY BECOMES KING,
PINOCCHIO, and LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD: A FEMINIST ECOLOGICAL
MUSICAL.
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