THE KID, With Sieber, Blackwell, Harada, et al, Opens 5/6

The New Group's production of 'The Kid' officially opens May 6. Previews for the show began Saturday, April 10.

The Kid stars Christopher Sieber, Susan Blackwell, Jill Eikenberry, Jeannine Frumess, Ann Harada, Brooke Sunny Moriber, Lucas Steele and Michael Wartella . The Kid is directed by Scott Elliott, Artistic Director of The New Group.

Casting breakdown by roles played:

Jill Eikenberry - Dan's mother
Jeannine Frumess - Melissa (birth mother)
Lucas Steele - Terry (Dan's boyfriend)
Michael Wartella - Bacchus (birth father)

Susan Blackwell, Ann Harada and Brooke Sunny Moriber are featured in the ensemble.

Based on the book by Dan Savage entitled The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant, the new musical The Kid features music by Andy Monroe, book by Michael Zam and lyrics by Jack Lechner. The authors of The Kid were honored with the 2009 BMI Foundation Jerry Bock Award for Best New Musical. Musical direction is by Dominick Amendum.

This musical is based on the true story of what happened when sex columnist Dan Savage and his boyfriend decided to create a family. Step one: Convince an adoption agency and homeless teenage mom that two gay men are the perfect parents for her child. Step two: Convince themselves. This marks The New Group's return to musical theater after producing Avenue Q, which received the Tony Award for Best New Musical in 2004.

Dan Savage is widely recognized as author of the internationally syndicated relationship and sex column "Savage Love" and the weekly podcast "Savage Lovecast." He is editorial director of the Seattle weekly The Stranger, where he was formerly Editor-in-Chief. He is a regular contributor to PRI's "This American Life," as well as a regular contributor to the opinion pages of The New York Times. He has been featured as a "Real Time Reporter" on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC and "The Colbert Report." Other published works include a memoir entitled The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage and My Family, and contributions to the collected work Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me, among others. The Kid was represented to The New Group by Amy Schiffman of the Intellectual Property Group (IPG); Elizabeth Wales of Wales Literary Agency place the title with Penguin USA, Carole DeSanti aquiring and Brian Tart editing for Dutton, which published the memoir in 1999. The Kid won a PEN USA West Award for Creative Nonfiction.

Scott Elliott's directing credits include Mourning Becomes Electra, Ayub Khan-Din's Rafta, Rafta..., Mike Leigh's Two Thousand Years and Abigail's Party, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Wallace Shawn's The Fever and Aunt Dan and Lemon and David Rabe's Hurlyburly, among many others. Broadway credits: The Threepenny Opera, Barefoot in the Park, The Women, Three Sisters and Present Laughter.

The New Group kicked off its 2009-2010 season with Kenneth Lonergan's The Starry Messenger, and is currently represented by the Off-Broadway revival of Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind, directed by Ethan Hawke.

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