Melissa Errico and Graham Rowat Lead Workshop of Gopnick and Shire's TABLE Today

The new musical TABLE, penned by New Yorker contributor Adam Gopnik and Academy Award winner David Shire, begins a month-long "lab" workshop today, February 23. Under the wings of the Long Wharf Theatre, and director Gordon Edelstein, Melissa Errico and Graham Rowat lead the cast.

Inspired by Gopnik's 2011 book, THE TABLE COMES FIRST: FAMILY, FRANCE, AND THE MEANING OF FOOD, the new musical has book and lyrics by Gopnik, with lyrics and music by Shire (BABY, CLOSER THAN EVER).

The cast also includes, Ed Watts, John Procaccino, Jeremy Greenbaum, Krystina Alabado, Milly Shapiro, Sarah Dacey Charles, Rashidra Scott,David Perlman, Victoria Huston-Elem, Ryan Duncan, and Lee Zarrett.

Gopnik's THE TABLE COMES FIRST: FAMILY, FRANCE, AND THE MEANING OF FOOD, is a beguiling tour of the morals and manners of our present food mania, in search of eating's deeper truths.

Never before have we cared so much about food. It preoccupies our popular culture, our fantasies, and even our moralizing. With our top chefs as deities and finest restaurants as places of pilgrimage, we have made food the stuff of secular seeking and transcendence, finding heaven in a mouthful. But have we come any closer to discovering the true meaning of food in our lives? With inimitable charm and learning, Adam Gopnik takes us on a beguiling journey in search of that meaning as he charts America's recent and rapid evolution from commendably aware eaters to manic, compulsive gastronomes.