Urban Stages Presents The World Premiere Of 'REWRITE'

URBAN STAGES: Frances Hill, Founder/Artistic Director  Lauren Schmiedel, Managing Director in association with Sara Katz presents Larson & Kleban Award Winning Composer, Joe Iconis' World Premiere of ReWrite a musical comedy triple feature. Directed by John Simpkins.
Begins December 6; Opens December 10, 2008

Celebrating its 25th Season, Urban Stages (Frances Hill, Artistic Director, Lauren Schmiedel, Managing Director) in association with Sara Katz will present a new musical by Larson and Kleban Award winning composer Joe Iconis entitled ReWrite, a musical comedy triple feature.  This production will be directed by John Simpkins.  ReWrite will begin on Saturday, December 6, opening on Wednesday, December 10, 2008 and will initially run through Saturday, January 3, 2009. Urban Stages is located at 259 West 30 Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues).  Tickets will be $40 ($20 during previews) and are available at Smarttix.com, or 212.868.4444.

Creative team includes: Michael Schweikardt (Sets), Michelle EDEN HUMPHREY (costumes) Chris Dallos (Lights), CRAIG KAUFMAN( Sound) and JENNIFER WERNER (Choreography).

Urban Stages will kick-off its milestone season with this fun, quirky trio of mini-musicals by the young and talented Joe Iconis called ReWrite, a musical comedy triple feature. ReWrite deals with time.  With deadlines.  The deadlines one imposes on oneself and the deadlines that the universe imposes on us.  It's about trying to live up to the expectations you created for yourself and trying to do it before your time runs out.  It's about normal people, not the sort of people who get musicals written about them.  Normal people dealing with little problems that seem huge and huge problems boiled down to something a bit more manageable.  ReWrite, a musical comedy triple feature includes the mini-musicals Nelson Rocks, Miss Marzipan and The Process. 

Things to Ruin, the songs of Joe Iconis, is currently being presented at The Zipper Factory Theater. Variety calls Things to Ruin "so much fun that it's a little overwhelming. Iconis is clearly out to win at this whole musical theatre thing, his songs are so smart and catchy."  Variety.

Cast includes: Nick Blaemire (Cry-Baby, music/ lyrics Glory Days), Badia Farha (Bway/tours: Sister Act the Musical, Little Shop of Horrors, Rent, Dreamgirls), Lorinda Lisitza (Night Life Award Winner), Lauren Marcus (The Plant that Ate Dirty Socks), AJ SHIVELY (National Tour The Sound of Music ) and JASON "SWEETTOOTH" WILLIAMS (Crossing Brooklyn).

NELSON ROCKS!: It's 8:03am on April 23rd and Nelson Drucker, indefatigable and oppressively nerdy, is going to ask Jenny Veccarelli to the Junior Prom Right Now.  Never mind that she's "out of his league," and never mind that the school bully is hot on his trail, and never mind that the whole frikkin' universe seems to be conspiring against him- he's asking her, man.  Because he has to.  Because if Jenny goes to the prom with him, all of his problems will be fixed and his life will be perfect!  Yay. NELSON ROCKS! is a pop/rock musical about a young dude who is trying to fix his life before the "You better get to class" bell rings.  Populated by adolescents, the show throbs and pulses along a locker-filled hallway, barreling towards its inevitable showdown.

MISS MARZIPAN: There's a red-haired woman in a house dress, frantically preparing for a dinner party as if her life depended on it.  Probably because her life really does depend on it.  See, Big D is coming for dinner and if she can't finish by the time he rings the doorbell, she'll never be able to impress him with her famous Marzipan.  And on top of the old ticking clock, there's a slightly sticky situation going on inside the pantry.  Oh, goodness.  What's a frazzled suburbanite with unstable tendencies to do?  Why, it's enough to make her, ya know.  Murder somebody.  MISS MARZIPAN is a dizzy musical about the life changing preparation that goes into a high stakes dinner party.  A sort of heightened look at the suburban experience, the show is frantic and calm, violent and sweet.  A little bit of blood is spilt, but nothing that some kitchen towels can't clean up.

THE PROCESS: There is a writer.  He has a deadline.  The writer has a problem taking off his mask and writing about something real.  But most importantly, the writer has a deadline.  As the Dunkin Donuts fills with the voices in his head, the writer must conquer his writer's block and finish his musical.  The Dunkin Donuts counter lady acts as our guide through this passionate look into one man's writing process.

ReWrite; a musical comedy triple feature, written by Joe Iconis, directed by John Simpkins.
Performances begin Saturday, December 6, opens December 10 through January 3, 2009

Performance Schedule:  Tuesday – Friday at 8PM; Saturday at 5:30PM & 9PM
Added shows: Sunday, December 7 & 28 at 3PM; Monday, December 22 & 29 at 8PM
No shows December 24/25 or January 1

Special New Years Eve Bash
Rock Out with ReWrite (Tickets $100)
9PM Show; 10:30PM Open Bar & Hors d'Oeuvres and
11PM  -  Rock in the New Year with  Joe Iconis and Special Guests
Tickets are $40 ($20 during preview through 12/10) at www.SmartTix.com or call 212.868.4444
Student Rush: $10 cash with valid ID 10 minutes before curtain
Running time: 90 Minutes
For more information about Urban Stages please visit www.urbanstages.org

Joe Iconis (book, music, lyrics)  is the recipient of an Ed Kleban Award and a Jonathan Larson Award.  He is the composer in residence at Ars Nova and was named one of the Dramatist Guild's 50 Writers to Watch.  His garage rock musical, The Black Suits, recently played SPF at the Public Theater, and his family rock musical for TheaterWorksUSA, The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks, completed a summer run at the Lortel Theater and is currently touring the country.  In addition to his theater work, Joe has played numerous sold-out gigs with his ROCK AND ROLL JAMBOREE show, a sort of musical theater/rock'n'roll collective made up his (very very talented!) friends.  Joe frequently performs at Joe's Pub, The Laurie Beechman Theater, Ars Nova, and Sardi's.

John Simpkins (director) recently directed Joe Iconis' The Black Suits (SPF - The Public Theatre) and the Off- Broadway production of The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks (Theatreworks, USA – Lucille Lortel Theatre), now touring the country. Other recent:  Annie and Cabaret (Sacramento Music Circus), Evita (Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma), Go-Go Beach (NYMF – 37 Arts) and Queen Esther (Merkin Hall).  Workshops/ readings: Next Thing You Know: New Songs from Salzman and Cunningham (Provincetown Playhouse), Half Married (Ryan Cunningham/ Charles Antin), Plastic! (Robert Maddock/ Joe Iconis/ Reza Jacobs - York Theatre), You Don't Know Jack (York Theatre), Bad Kid School (Barrington Stage), 29 (Gaby Alter/ Tommy Newman), Blood Drive (Rachel Sheinkin), Beasts and Saints (Mindi Dickstein) and Like You Like It.  John is a member of the music theatre faculty at New York University - where he has directed Floyd Collins, Violet, Urinetown, Merrily We Roll Along, Parade, Godspell and A New Brain.  He holds a Bachelor of Music from Miami University and a Master of Arts from NYU.  Upcoming projects include a return engagement (after playing Ars Nova, Joe's Pub and the New York Musical Theatre Festival) of Things to Ruin:  The Songs of Joe Iconis at the Zipper Factory.

URBAN STAGES (producer) is an award-winning, not-for-profit Off-Broadway Theatre Company founded in 1983 by current Artistic Director Frances Hill. Over the past 25 years, Urban Stages has produced over 70 productions (mostly world premieres) including Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Eisa Davis' Bulrusher (2007), two Drama Desk nominations, an Outer Critic's Circle Award, an Obie nomination, and eight Audelco nominations. Our productions of Men On The Verge Of A Hispanic Breakdown, by Guillermo Reyes, and Minor Demons, by Bruce Graham subsequently moved to commercial theatres. Chili Queen, a play by newscaster Jim Lehrer, transferred to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. (1989).  Chungmi Kim's Comfort Women moved to Seoul, Korea and is being translated into Chinese to be produced in Asian communities in Vancouver and Toronto, Canada.  The majority of works developed at Urban Stages have had further productions commercially, regionally, and abroad. Numerous projects developed at Urban Stages have been adapted into film and television projects, including Scar, by Murray Mednick, Conversations with the Goddesses, by Agapi Stassinopoulos, and Cotton Mary, by Alexandra Viets. Urban Stages has  a consistent history of discovering new writers to the theatre community and introducing their plays into theatrical repertory

Sara Katz (producer) is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Square Peg Productions whose mission is to foster the creation of original work by emerging playwrights.  For Square Peg Sara has produced the world premier of Ronan Noone's The Atheist, the New York premier of John Kuntz's  Jump/Rope as well as benefit readings of Megan Mostyn-Brown's Going After Alice and Ellen Melaver's Not Waving.  Sara has also served as a producer for the Summer Play Festival(SPF) on productions of Not Waving by Ellen Melaver,Hitting the Wall by Barbara Blumenthal-Ehrlich and, most recently, The Black Suits with book, music and lyrics by Joe Iconis.  In 2008 Sara produced SPF's first ever Composer Exposure; a concert to showcase up and coming musical theater composers and lyricists. Sara recently made her Broadway producing debut as an Associate Producer for [title of show]. Most recently Sara produced Things to Ruin: The Songs of Joe Iconis at the Zipper Factory Theater. Sara is a proud member of The Women's Project Producers Lab and serves as an Associate Producer at The New York Musical Theater Festival. Sara also serves on the Young Patron Steering Committee at Lincoln Center Theater as the Chair of the committee's annual Kick-Off Party. She is a graduate of Boston Univeristy's College of Fine Arts with a B.F.A in Theater.

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