Pale Fire Presents European Premiere of New Musical HOSTAGE SONG, 6/22-7/8

"I've spent the entire week watching old home movies. All of Jim's birthday parties. Trips to Disney Land. Trips to the beach. Christmas dinners. Anniversary parties. All the way back to our prom. What I don't have is his beheading. None of the networks will send me a copy, no matter how much I beg. Even if he is my husband - no one will let me see."

The European premiere of Clay McLeod Chapman and Kyle Jarrow's indie rock musical Hostage Song opens at the Finborough Theatre for a limited run of nine Sunday, Monday and Tuesday performances on Sunday, 22 June 2014 (Press Night: Monday, 23 June 2014 at 7.30pm).

Hostage Song is a subversive, high-velocity Off-Off Broadway indie rock musical from New York artists Clay McLeod Chapman and Kyle Jarrow. In an unspecified time and place, Jim and Jennifer are hostages, blindfolded and awaiting their fate. In an effort to distract themselves from their inevitable demise, they forge a relationship while trying to let go of the images of their loved ones. As the reality of their predicament becomes clearer, the fantasy becomes more vivid. Stunning rock music propels the story forward as the two take refuge in music, memory and each other, grappling in the dark for the last bit of love they will ever know.

Writer Clay McLeod Chapman is the creator of the acclaimed monologue series The Pumpkin Pie Show. His theatre work includes Commencement and SCKBSTD (with Bruce Hornsby). Publications include both short stories - rest area - and novels - miss corpus, The Tribe, Homeroom Headhunters and Camp Cannibal. Film includes The Boy (with Craig Macneill), Dad (with Glenn McQuaid) and two shorts for the Sundance Festival - Late Bloomer and Henley (also with Craig Macneill). Comics include The Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man and Ultimate Spider-Man Adventures. He is a writing instructor at The Actors Studio MFA Program at Pace University.www.claymcleodchapman.com

Composer and Lyricist Kyle Jarrow is a New York City based writer and rock musician. He is singer and keyboardist for the bands Sky-Pony and Super Mirage. He won an Obie Award in 2004 for his play A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant (John Houseman Theater, New York City, and the Powerhouse Theatre, Los Angeles). His plays include Gorilla Man (Performance Space 122, NYC), Whisper House (with Duncan Sheik) (Old Globe Theater, San Diego),Hypochondria (Shapiro Theatre, NYC), Trigger and Love Kills (45th Street Theater, NYC). He also wrote the screenplay for the film of Love Kills which was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival 2010. In 2010, Jarrow wrote a pilot for the CW Network called Trigger. In 2013, Jarrow developed a police drama for FX produced by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and CW announced development of Ze, a family drama series written by Jarrow about a transgendered teen.www.landoftrust.com

Director James Veitch is artistic director and founder of Pale Fire. His writing and directing for Pale Fire include Keats in Hampstead, Romantics (Keats House) and Room #103, Hotel Chelsea taking place inside the Chelsea Hotel in New York City. He has worked on productions with the Royal National Theatre, Royal Windsor Theatre, BBC TV and BBC Radio. James also writes and performs comedy. Comic transcripts of his interactions with a scammer were published by The New York Times. His first solo show The Fundamental Interconnectedness of Everyone with an Internet Connection will premiere at the Gilded Balloon as part of this year's Edinburgh Festival.www.veitch.me

The Press on Hostage Song
"A devastatingly poignant, strangely philosophical meditation on salvation that just happens to sport a sick downbeat" Time Out New York
"Hostage + Song = Masterpiece." Chicago Now
"A high-decibel romantic comedy with a seriously unnerving edge. Chapman's delicately rendered scenes flow effortlessly into Jarrow's songs, which are outgrowths of the characters' fantasies. The show isn't solemn - it actually rocks - but it isn't in bad taste either. Instead, it brings a punk aesthetic to a common dilemma: the desire to connect with the most horrific stories of the day." The New Yorker
"In a season of unlikely musicals, on Broadway and off, Hostage Song maybe the oddest of all. Mr Jarrow's songs are catchy, straight-up melodic rock with a strong beat... fantasy is transformed into emotionally sustaining reality." The New York Times
"Hostage Song is strong stuff that must be seen to be appreciated." Backstage
"Harrowing, gutsy, brazen, relevant, mind-imploding, yet also tragically, poignantly, beautifully human." From the Ledge
"A thrilling life-rock-concert vibe... What sets this above many shows about or relating to war, is finding a fresh lens for our media-wary eyes to see through... Exquisitely and unexpectedly subtle."nytheatre.com
"A thrilling show" Time Out New York
"This is the rare show that works on all levels, from Chapman's arresting metaphors to Butler's relentless direction, Jarrow's serrated anthems, and the cast's raw honesty" New Theater Corps
"Bottom line: Hostage Song will make you laugh, have your head bopping and fingers snapping, and induce a panic attack. How many theatrical experiences can lay claim to that? It is also enormously and unexpectedly funny." theatreiseasy.com
"Consider it a grim, melodic and ultimately heartbreaking mash-up of Arcade Fire and A Mighty Heart. ...Undeniably moving to its breathtaking end." Time Out Chicago
"I've never seen a musical quite like this one - which means GO!" David Bell, Show Showdown
"It's touching, funny, gripping and ultimately, yes, transcendental theater." Blogcritics Magazine

The Press on writer Clay McLeod Chapman
"Chapman clearly delights in the details of his characters' unusual predicaments" Seattle Weekly onRest Area
"Unsettling, disturbing and dark musings in what often seems to be a surrealistic landscape of one's imaginings" Richmond Times-Dispatch on Rest Area
"A sick genius" Flavorpill on The Pumpkin Pie Show
"Like a rundown carnival's dark ride attraction, Clay McLeod Chapman packs his monologues, short stories, novels and plays with the unnerving sense that serious danger is lurking just around the bend" The Villager on The Penalty

The Press on writer Kyle Jarrow
"NYC's hipster playwriter" The New York Times
"Mr. Jarrow is the kind of writer who likes to provoke people." The New Yorker
"A weird and endearing dramatist" Time Out New York
"Jarrow's rapidly growing body of work proves that just because something is entertaining doesn't mean it's trivial." The New York Sun
"Jarrow's melodies are insanely catchy... [he's] a Brooklyn-based whiz kid." Boston's Weekly Dig

The press on director James Veitch
"A brainy, intense young director. Get too close and you risk being scorched by his high-voltage passion" The Vancouver Courier on The Hothouse
"Veitch is ahead of the poetic curve." The Guardian on Keats in Hampstead
"Fiercely intelligent" Broadway World
"Passionately emotional" Time Out on Keats in Hampstead

The Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED
Box Office 0844 847 1652 Book online at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays, 22, 23, 24, 29, 30 June, 1, 6, 7, 8 July 2014
Sunday and Monday evenings at 7.30pm. Tuesday matinees at 2.00pm.
Tickets £18, £16 concessions.

Photo Credit: Jeffrey Weiss