Desperate Measures, with von Essen, Powers, Plays NYMF

The New York Musical Theatre Festival will present the NY premiere of a new musical Desperate Measures, with performances to begin on Tuesday, September 12.  The show will play through September 24 at the 45th Street Theatre (354 West 45th Street).

Desperate Measures features book and lyrics by Tony-nominated Peter Kellogg (Anna Karenina, Chasing Nicolette) and music by Barrymore Award Winner David Friedman (Chasing Nicolette); it will be directed by Tony-nominated Eleanor Reissa (Those Were the Days).

The cast includes: Merwin Foard (Bway's Sweeney Todd, La Cage Aux Folles, Assassins), Patrick Garner (Bway's Gypsy, …Forum, Smell of the Kill, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Front Page),  Ginifer King (Bway's Gypsy), Jenny Powers (Bway's Little Women), Max von Essen  (Bway's Dance of the Vampires, Les Miserables, Jesus Christ Superstar), and Nick Wyman (Bway's Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera (original cast), My Fair Lady, On the Twentieth Century, and Sly Fox).

The show "tells the tale of Johnny Blood, a hotheaded young cowboy, sentenced to hang for killin' a man in a bar fight. When his sister, Susanna, a novice nun in a nearby Franciscan mission, pleads for his life, the Governor offers to pardon Johnny – if Susanna will sleep with him. What to do? The sheriff suggests Susanna say yes and then, under cover of darkness, switch places with o­ne of the saloon girls. What happens next makes for a desperate mix of comedy, suspense, and romance, in this Western musical loosely based o­n Shakespeare's Measure for Measure," according to press notes.

The musical performs: Tuesday, September 12 at 8PM; Friday, September 15 at 4:30PM; Saturday, September 16 at 8PM; Sunday, September 17 at 8PM, Wednesday, September 20 at 4:30; and Sunday, September 24 at 4:30PM.  Tickets are $20 and can be purchased by calling 212-352-3101 or visiting www.nymf.org.