Stage Door Theatre Presents NINE

The multiple Tony Award-winning musical Nine will open in Theatre 1 at Stage Door Theatre on April 28, and run through June 11.

Based on Federico Fellini's Academy Award-winning film 8½, Nine focuses on celebrated film director Guido Contini, who is dealing with a mid-life crisis, numerous faltering relationships, including a failing marriage, and his increasingly futile attempts to come up with a plot for his next movie after a number of box office flops. The original Broadway production won five Tony Awards in 1982, including Best Musical.

Nine was originally created and written by Maury Yeston as a class project in Lehman Engel's BMI Music Theatre Workshop in 1973. As a teenager he had seen Fellini's iconic film and was intrigued by its themes. Yeston, in a 1982 interview in the New York Times explained: "I looked at the screen and said, 'That's me....I still believed in all the dreams and ideals of what it was to be an artist, and here was a movie about an artist - an artist in trouble. It became an obsession."

Stage Door's production will be directed by Peter J. Loewy, who has directed the show previously - at his own Forum Theatre in Metuchen, New Jersey: "Nine is a show that's rarely done - it will be somewhat of a departure from Stage Door normal fare," Loewy says. "It has a soaring score by Maury Yeston, and the source material, Fellini's autobiographical film 8½, is a fascinating look at one man's retrospective journey through his life, his career, and at the women he loved, loves, and hopes to love again."

Loewy is recreating the staging from his original, Forum Theatre production of Nine with additional choreography by Kevin Black. David Nagy is the show's Musical Director Lighting Design is by Dean Landhuis, Set Design is by Michael McClain, and Costume Design is by Jerry Sturdefant.

Nine will star Paul O'Donnell as the troubled Guido. O'Donnell has taken on an unusual 'double-duty' in this production - he is also Stage Door Theatre's Operations Director. Elizabeth Sackett will play Guido's wife Luisa, Ellie Pattison his agent Liliane La Fleur, Alexandra Milbrath his mistress Carla, and Victoria Lauzun his muse, Claudia Nardi. Other cast members include Emily Freeman, Kat Gold, Dalia Aleman, Sandi Stock, Rebeca Diaz, Alexandra Garcia, Melody Lieberman, Hilleah Neve, Stephanny Noria, Caterina Randazzo, Alexandra Van Hasselt, and Lara Williams.

Nine is produced in part by a grant from the City of Margate Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA).

Nine will run from April 28 - June 11 at Stage Door Theatre. The theatre is located at 8036 Sample Road, in Margate. Tickets for Nine are $38 - $42; $16 student tickets are also available. Tickets may be purchased at the Broward Stage Door Theatre box office at 954-344-7765 or on line at www.stagedoorfl.org.