Blum & Overbey Star in Shawn 'Play-Opera' The Music Teacher

By: Jan. 23, 2006
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Casting is now set for The New Group's upcoming production of The Music Teacher, a "play-opera" collaboration between Wallace and Allen Shawn. The show will begin performances at the Minetta Lane Theatre (18 Minetta Lane, between 6th Avenue and MacDougal Street) on February 21st; it will open on March 6th and run through April 8th.

Written by writer/actor Wallace Shawn (Aunt Dan and Lemon, translation for the upcoming Threepenny Opera) and with music by Allen Shawn, the show will be headlined by Mark Blum and Kellie Overbey, who will be joined by singers Jason Forbach, Wayne Hobbs, Jeff Picón and Sarah Wolfson; Ross Benoliel, Elisa Cordova, Lauren Jelencovich, Kristin Knutson, Stefanie Nava, Rebecca Robbins, Kathryn Skemp, Bobby Steggert and Kristina Valada-Viars will comprise the ensemble.

The Music Teacher will be helmed by Tom Cairns, who will also direct Marie and Bruce, an upcoming film written by Shawn with Julianne Moore and Matthew Broderick.  The director has staged both operatic works as well as plays such as Shawn's Aunt Dan and Lemon and Cloud Nine (both in London); he will also design the sets for The Music Teacher. "A unique and startling blend of theatre and opera, The Music Teacher is a story of creation and obsession in which a younger teacher and his brilliant female student conceive and perform a new opera," according to press notes.

Blum has appeared on Broadway in Twelve Angry Men, The Graduate, A Thousand Clowns, Gore Vidal's The Best Man, My Thing of Love, Lost in Yonkers and The Merchant. Overbey's Broadway credits include Twentieth Century, QED, Judgment at Nuremburg, Present Laughter and Buried Child.

The creative team will include choreographer David Neumann, musical director Timothy Long, costume designer Kaye Voyce, lighting designer Matt Frey and sound designer Shane Rettig.

The New Group is also currently presenting its hit Abigail's Party, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, at the Acorn Theatre. The Music Teacher was to have played that theatre prior to the extension of Abigail's Party. Following The Music Teacher, The New Group will present Everything's Turning Into Beautiful by Seth Zvi Rosenfeld; it will star Bobby Cannavale and Annabella Sciorra. The one-man show A Spalding Gray Matter, starring author Michael Brandt, will also be presented as part of the New Group (naked).

Tickets can be purchased by calling (212) 307-4100 or beginning on February 7th, at the box office. For more informatino, visit www.thenewgroup.org.


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