LENNON Musical headed to Broadway set for Summer 2005

By: BWW News Desk Sep. 16, 2004

This is more than a biography. This is the story of how one man's life defined the times and the socio-political struggle that overtook our world. This is the story of LENNON.

Producers Edgar Lansbury, Don Scardino and Allan McKeown in association with Clear Channel Entertainment will produce LENNON, the world premiere of a musical based on the life and songs of John Lennon. Written and directed by Don Scardino, the musical will make its Broadway debut at the Broadhurst Theatre (235 West 44th Street) Summer 2005.

Follow the progress of this new musical at www.lennonthemusical.com.
Before opening on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre in the Summer 2005, LENNON will play an engagement at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, California from April 5th - May 7th and then at the Colonial Theater in Boston, Massachusetts from May 24th - June 18th.

LENNON is produced by arrangement with Yoko Ono. "Over the past two decades, I have been experiencing the world's feedback to John's life, statements and music," said Yoko Ono. "I've realized what John meant to the world. He was a catalyst who brought down the hypocrisy and the Establishment by saying 'Gimme Some Truth.' What we present on stage should again give people insight, encouragement, inspiration and fun, so they can go on with their lives with some assurance and hope."

Director and book writer Don Scardino says, "We will tell the story of John Lennon's life using Lennon's own words and twenty-seven of his songs. Our ensemble of 10 extraordinary and diverse performers and a ten-piece onstage band will guide the audience through Lennon's life and the eras he shaped." Scardino continues, "Out of the nearly two hundred songs to choose from, the musical includes such memorable tunes as "Imagine," "Instant Karma," "Give Peace a Chance," "(Just Like) Starting Over" and "Whatever Gets You Through the Night," among others. Using slide and film projections, LENNON will be a visually stunning search for the real John Lennon."

Producer Edgar Lansbury added, "John Lennon wrote hundreds of songs after the Beatles split up. The material is diverse, rich and incredibly theatrical."

Producer Allan McKeown said, "In LENNON, we will tell the story of an era - an entire generation. Through his music, Lennon's voice emerges as one of the most unique of our time."

In addition to Scardino, the LENNON creative team includes Joe Malone (Choreography) John Arnone (Scenic Design), Jane Greenwood (Costume Design), and Jules Fisher/Peggy Eisenhauer (Lighting Design).

In San Francisco, LENNON's first preview at the Orpheum Theatre will be Tuesday, April 5th. Performance schedule and ticketing information will be announced at a later date.

In Boston, LENNON's first preview at the Colonial Theatre will be Tuesday, May 24th. Performance schedule and ticketing information will be announced at a later date.

Broadway playing schedule, ticketing information, and casting information to be announced.

CREATIVE TEAM:

Don Scardino (Co-Producer, Director, and Book Writer) Mr. Scardino's directing career spans television, film and theater and includes such credits as A Few Good Men (Broadway and National Tour), as well as four seasons as the Artistic Director at Playwrights Horizons where he produced over two dozen new American plays. Other theatre credits include Kathy and Mo, Later Life, the long running revival of Godspell among many others. On television, he has directed numerous episodes of "Ed," "The West Wing," "Sports Night," "The Education of Max Bickford" (also as Executive Producer) with Richard Dreyfuss, "Cosby," "Law & Order," "Tracey Takes On," "Homicide," "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd" and many more. His film, "Advice From a Caterpillar" won the award for Best Picture at the Aspen Comedy Festival in 2000 and the film "Me and Veronica" was selected for competition in the Venice and London Film Festivals.

Joe Malone (Choreography) In the past 25 years, Joe has sung and danced in over 100 television specials, films, nightclub acts and videos, and has worked as an actor and choreographer on the Emmy Award-winning "The Tracey Ullman Show" and "Tracey Takes On..." (Emmy nom.). Awards include The Lehman Award, The National Academy of Dance Award, The Min-on Award and The SGI Culture Award. In 1992, with his wife Nanci Hammond and Louise Mandel, he established "The Performing Arts Center" a school concentrating on the training of young artists with a dream of a career in the performing arts. In 1994, he established "Mandalone Project", a company devoted to the ongoing development of music and dance related projects geared for the concert theater.

John Arnone (Scenic Design) His designs for Broadway include Fortune's Fool and The Full Monty (also London), The Who's Tommy (Tony Award); How to Succeed©; Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; Sacrilege; The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public; Sex and Longing directed by Garland Wright; The Deep Blue Sea; Patio/Porch; Lone Star/Pvt. Wars; Marlene; Minnelli on Minnelli; Gore Vidal's The Best Man; Arthur Miller's Ride Down Mt. Morgan. He has received two Obies for sustained achievement in set design and the L.A. Theater Critics, Dora Mavor Moore, Outer Critics Circle, American Theater Wing, Drama Desk, Olivier (nom.) and Tony Awards. His work has been seen in London, Vienna, Frankfurt, Berlin and Prague. He designed the recent productions of Mr. Albee's The Play About the Baby and Tiny Alice.

Jane Greenwood (Costume Design) Broadway: more than 70 shows, including The Caretaker, The Retreat From Moscow, "MASTER HAROLD"...and the boys, Salome: The Reading, Tartuffe, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Oldest Living Confederate Widow, Fortune's Fool, Morning's at Seven, Major Barbara, The Dinner Party, James Joyce's The Dead, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, An American Daughter, Master Class, The Heiress, Passion, The Sisters Rosensweig, Plenty, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. Off-Broadway: Burn This; Vita and Virginia; Sylvia; The Lisbon Traviata; Lips Together, Teeth Apart. Dance: Martha Clarke's The Garden of Earthly Delights. Metropolitan Opera: The Great Gatsby (world premiere). Chicago Lyric Opera: Nabucco. Film: Arthur, The Four Seasons, Glengarry Glen Ross. Awards: numerous, including 12 Tony nominations. Yale School of Drama faculty.

Jules Fisher/Peggy Eisenhauer (Lighting Design). They began working together nineteen years ago on Bob Fosse's Big Deal. Together they received the 1996 Tony Award for Bring In 'Da Noise, Bring In 'Da Funk. Recent Broadway credits include Gypsy, and Assassins (2004 Tony® Award). Jules Fisher has designed the lighting for over 150 Broadway productions garnering six additional Tony Awards for Pippin, Dancin', Ulysses In Nighttown, Grand Hotel, The Will Rogers Follies, and Jelly's Last Jam, the latter three collaborations with Ms. Eisenhauer. Their designs of the theatrical lighting sequences in collaboration with Cinematographer Dion Beebe on the film Chicago was honored with a 2003 Academy Award nomination for Cinematography. Other recent concert lighting can be seen in the films Marci "X" and School Of Rock. Their studio, Third Eye, conceives and designs lighting for all forms of entertainment.

PRODUCERS:
Edgar Lansbury (Producer) Mr. Lansbury began his career in the theater as a designer of Off-Broadway shows and subsequently became an Art Director on CBS' "Playhouse 90," "Studio One" and "Climax!" Mr. Lansbury has produced a score of Broadway and Off-Broadway plays, including The Subject was Roses (winner of the Critics' Circle Award, the Antoinette Perry Award, and the Pulitzer Prize), Broadway Follies, The Magic Show, the London and New York productions of Gypsy starring Angela Lansbury, international productions of Godspell, The Night That Made America Famous, Elizabeth I, First One Asleep Whistle, The Only Game in Town, To Be Young, Gifted and Black, Promenade, That Summer - That Fall, Look to the Lilies, and American Buffalo. Recently he co-produced an adaptation of Willa Cather's O, Pioneer! at the Huntington Theater in Boston, the Rap musical Club XII, Amphigorey - The Musical, Frank Gilroy's Any Given Day, In Circles, Curtains by Stephen Bill which won two Obie Awards, the award-winning Advice From a Caterpillar, Grace and Glorie, with Estelle Parsons and Lucie Arnaz, June Moon, and the off-Broadway smash hit As Bees in Honey Drown. On film Mr. Lansbury produced "Godspell" for Columbia Pictures, and "The Subject Was Roses" for MGM. Other films include Merchant-Ivory's "The Wild Party," "Squirm," "Blue Sunshine," "He Knows You're Alone," and "The Clairvoyant," as well as Movies of the Week "Summer Girl," and "A Stranger Waits" for CBS Television. Mr. Lansbury recently completed the romantic comedy "Advice From a Caterpillar" and executive produced "Gypsy '83."

Allan McKeown (Co-Producer) is a prolific producer of TV, Feature Films and Theater, both in the UK and the US. He has been Executive Producer of many of Britain's best-loved comedy and drama series. In the US he has been awarded multiple Emmys for having created with his wife Tracey Ullman her HBO series Tracey Takes On. While under contract with Paramount and later 20th Century Fox he produced for all the major networks, HBO and A&E. During his career, Allan McKeown has founded several businesses, including the launch of the UK's first ever publicly quoted independent production company, SelecTV and was an original member of the Meridian consortium, which was awarded the commercial TV franchise for the South and South East of England. On the stage his credits include The Last Night of the Poms at the Royal Albert Hall with Barry Humphries. Anyone for Dennis (London's West End), The Big Love on Broadway, and more recently Jerry Springer The Opera, (Olivier Award, best Musical 2004) producing and financing the show through its development on the fringe, at the National Theater and now running at the Cambridge Theater in London. Upcoming, "Tracey's Best Bits" at the Henry Fonda Theater (LA) this February which will air on HBO the summer of 2005, prior to making its way to Broadway in the fall of 2005.

Clear Channel Entertainment (Co-Producer) a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, is a leading producer and marketer of live entertainment events and currently owns, operates and/or exclusively books 130 live entertainment venues in North America & Europe. Recent Broadway producing credits include The Producers, Caroline, or Change, Dracula, Fiddler on the Roof, Wonderful Town, Hairsprayand Movin' Out. Current touring productions include The Producers, Hairspray and Movin' Out. In addition, Clear Channel Entertainment presents theatrical subscription seasons and individual presentations in over 50 markets across North America. More information may be found by visiting www.broadwayacrossamerica.com and www.clearchannel.com.

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