York Theater Company Announces Blind Lemon Blues Opening 9/8 & Yank! In 2010

The York Theatre Company (James Morgan, Producing Artistic Director) is proud to announce two upcoming mainstage productions. Blind Lemon Blues-based upon more than 60 Blind Lemon Jefferson songs - will return to the York Mainstage in Fall 2009. Performances begin September 8th. Spring 2010 will see the Off-Broadway premiere of the new musical Yank!. Performances begin in February 2010. All performances will be at the company's home at The Theatre at Saint Peter's (54th Street just east of Lexington Avenue). For more information, visit www.yorktheatre.org or call 212/935-5820.

The York Theatre Company was just nominated for five 2009 Drama Desk Awards, four 2009 Lucille Lortel Awards, two Outer Critics Circle Awards, and two Drama League Awards for its productions of Enter Laughing, The Musical and My Vaudeville Man! last season. The York is the only theater in New York City-and one of very few in the world-dedicated to developing and fully producing new musicals, as well as preserving gems from the past. Winner of a special Drama Desk Award for developing and producing new musical theatre, York's intimate, imaginative style of producing both original and classic musicals has resulted in critical acclaim and recognition from artists and audiences alike for almost four decades. Under the guidance of Artistic Director James Morgan since 1997, the York has focused exclusively on new musicals in its Mainstage Series-most of them world, American, or New York premieres-by some of the field's most esteemed creators, and has also helped launch the careers of many talented new writers. The York's Developmental Reading Series, which presents nearly 40 free readings of new musicals every year, was the incubator for the Tony Award-winning Broadway hit Avenue Q, among many other significant shows.

Blind Lemon Blues was created by Alan Govenar and Akin Babatunde, has musical arrangements by Akin Babatunde, Cavin Yarbrough and Alisa Peoples Yarbrough, and is directed and choreographed by Mr. Babatunde. It will be presented by The York Theatre Company and Documentary Arts in association with Central Track Productions.

Blind Lemon Blues was presented as a York mainstage production in 2007 for a special 10-performance run featuring Benita Arterberry, Akin Babatunde, Timothy Parham, Lillias White, Cavin Yarbrough, Alisa Peoples Yarbrough and guitarist Sam Swank. The New York Times declared it "a lively and intelligent new musical-an inspiration!" and Variety concurred, saying "Blues lovers be grateful... very, very grateful-Blind Lemon Jefferson's voice emerges with full force!" Casting for the fall engagement will be announced soon.
Jefferson was a blind street musician who played his guitar with a tin cup tied to it until a Paramount Records scout discovered him. Between 1926 and 1929, Jefferson made more than 80 records and became the biggest selling down-home blues singer in America. Blind Lemon Blues is set in New York City in 1948 at the last recording session of the legendary Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Leadbelly, and combines elements of traditional blues, gospel, rhythm and blues, soul, doo-wop, and rap to evoke the enduring legacy of Blind Lemon and his contemporaries Blind Willie Johnson, Lillian Glinn, Hattie Hudson, Bobbie Cadillac, Lillian Miller and Leadbelly himself.

Yank!, a new musical set in the U.S. Army at the time of World War II, has music by Joseph Zellnik with book and lyrics by David Zellnik. It will be presented by the York Theatre Company in association with Pamela Koslow, Maren Berthelsen and Stuart Wilk, and associate producer Matt Schicker. The cast and creative teams will be announced shortly.

Yank! tells the story of Stu, a scared Midwestern kid who gets drafted for World War II in 1943, and becomes a photographer for Yank Magazine, the journal "for and by the servicemen." Yank! has a score that pays homage to the 1940s and explores what it means to be a man, and what it is to fall in love and struggle to survive in a time and place where the odds are stacked against him. Yank! premiered at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2005 where it had a sold-out run and won an audience award for Best Musical. It was subsequently presented by the Gallery Players in Brooklyn-where it was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award, and was seen in its West Coast premiere at the Diversionary Theatre in San Diego. During its run at the Gallery Players, NYTheatre.com declared "Yank! is poised to become a musical of real stature."

Tickets for both shows will be available soon at the York box office (212) 935-5820 and on its website, www.yorktheatre.org.