RED HOOK Premieres at the Coney Island Film Festival 10/3

Red Hook, a horror thriller directed by Elizabeth Lucas (Clear Blue Tuesday) premieres October 3, 2009 at the Coney Island Film Festival. Starring Terrence Mann (Broadway: Cats, Les Miserables, Beauty and the Beast, The Rocky Horror Show, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Upcoming: The Addams Family), Christina Brucato (The Diary of Anne Frank, The House of Yes), Alex Brightman (Broadway: currently Boq in Wicked), and Brian J. Smith (Broadway: Come Back Little Sheba, TV: Stargate Universe).

The cast includes Tate Ellington (Broadway: The Philanthropist), Bryan Fenkart (Broadway: Memphis), Hollis Scarborough (Lunch at NYMF, Hairspray in Las Vegas), Karla Mosley (Max & Ruby, Dancing With Abandon at the Fringe Festival), Debargo Sanyal (Smoking Bloomberg at NYMF), Frankie Shaw, and Karissa Lee Staples. Also featured in the cast are Shonn Wiley (Broadway: Dracula, 42nd Street, currently Jersey Boys in Chicago), and Kelli Barrett (Broadway: currently in The Royal Family).

Described as hip, romantic and darkly clever, RED HOOK is a chilling thrill ride through the landmarks and local haunts of New York.

Adjusting to college is a real killer in the thriller RED HOOK.  Ten years after witnessing her older sister's brutal murder, Jenny Traylor (Christina Brucato) leaves her hometown in North Carolina to start her freshman year at the University of New York City. Still traumatized by her sister's death and struggling with crippling agoraphobia, Jenny tries to cope with the overwhelming city and figure out her new life, all while under the secret watch of Lt. Fox (Tony Award® nominee Terrence Mann) — the police officer who shot her sister's assailant.

When Tim (Bryan Fenkart), Jenny's over-enthusiastic Resident Advisor, organizes a Welcome Week scavenger hunt, Jenny is reluctantly persuaded to join the game, along with her theatrical roommate, AnGELa (Hollis Scarborough), the sultry Deena (Frankie Shaw), and sweetheart Gavin (Tate Ellington), who is dealing with his own troubled past. But as Jenny and her new friends decipher the cryptic clues being texted to their cell phones — clues that lead them on a tangled path through darker and increasingly remote parts of the city — it becomes terrifyingly clear that the stakes are much higher than the White Stripes concert tickets they were trying to win.

RED HOOK is directed by Elizabeth Lucas, who directed many shows at NYMF, including The View From Here, The Last Starfighter, and the upcoming musical The Cure. She is also the director of the feature film CLEAR BLUE TUESDAY and the multi-award-winning short ISABELLA RICO, which has appeared in 33 festivals worldwide. She is a founding producer of the New York Musical Theatre Festival.

The screenplay for RED HOOK is written by Sammy Buck, who also wrote the book and lyrics for Like You Like It (Gallery Players and NYMF, 2009 IT Award winner for Outstanding Musical) and The 7-Year B*tch, as well as the book for Common Grounds (NYMF 2006) and the upcoming Andy Warhol Was Right (NYMF 2009).

RED HOOK is produced by Brad Rubenstein (chairman, New York Festival of Song) and Kris Stewart (founder, New York Musical Theatre Festival) of Red Sand Media Partners. Executive Producers are Joel & Phyllis Ehrlich of Harmony Entertainment Group; Co-producer Michael J. Hein of MooDude Films. Associate Producers are Hillary Cutter, Stan Joseph, Elizabeth Lucas and Jamie Mayer.