THE GOLD to Be Presented as Part of 2016 NYMF at The Pearl Theatre

The New York Musical Festival and Laura Yosowitz, Vital Arts Collaborative are pleased to announce THE GOLD, a new musical about one man's fight for love, family and country, with book by Andrea Lepcio and Phil Yosowitz, and music and lyrics by Phil Yosowitz.

The production will play on Monday, August 1 at 8pm, Tuesday, August 2 at 1pm, Thursday, August 4 at 9pm, and Saturday, August 6 at 5pm and 9pm at the The Pearl Theatre, located at 555 West 42nd Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues on the south side of 42nd Street). The NYMF PASS is now on sale at http://nymf.org/festival/tickets. Individual tickets go onsale June 20. For more information and to book tickets visit http://nymf.org/thegold.

Joseph Cohen is a Jewish-German boxer who finds his 1936 Olympic ambitions crushed as the Nazis rise to power. He soon learns that his toughest fight lies outside the ring as he is separated from the woman he loves and their young son. Set against the backdrop of the Holocaust and the creation of Israel, THE GOLD is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the journey of self-discovery that each of us takes as we search for purpose in our lives. Visit www.TheGoldTheMusical.com

Philip Yosowitz (Book, Music, Lyrics) is a plastic surgeon by profession who has always composed music. Phil grew up with his Czech-born immigrant father and Hungarian-Romanian mother in Cleveland, Ohio. He completed his medical training at UCLA and at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., and began his private practice in Houston, TX, where he now resides. While Dr. Yosowitz's love for composing began in childhood, The Gold is his first completed musical theatre work. The story of The Gold was inspired by his love of athletics and his childhood memories of living with family members who were Holocaust survivors who had recently immigrated to the United States. He is a lover of history and is currently writing a musical based on Joan of Arc.

Andrea Lepcio (Book Writer) is best known for Looking for the Pony, a finalist for the Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award and for the NEA Outstanding New American Play Award. It was presented in a "Rolling World Premiere" Off-Broadway at Vital Theatre Company in New York and Synchronicity Performance Group in Atlanta and subsequent productions. Her plays and musicals have been produced and developed at HERE, Lark Play Development Center, Manhattan Theatre Source, New York Music Theatre Festival, New Shoe, Shalimar Productions, TerraNova Collective, Three Chicks, Titans Theatre, Vital Theatre, Williamsburg Art Nexus, and Women's Project in NY; Bloody Unicorn, Goodspeed Opera House, Hangar Theatre, Miller Theatre, Provincetown Theatre Company, Synchronicity Performance Group, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, and Trustus Theatre, regionally, and Daegu International Musical Festival and The Little Theatre Group of Costa Rica, internationally. She is currently working on an EST/Sloan commission for a new play about the Montreal Protocol. Tunnel Vision will be produced at Off the Wall in Pittsburgh in October 2015. She developed Strait of Gibraltar and Dinner at Home between Deaths at Naked Angels and Lark Play Development Center. Me You Us Them was developed with TerraNova Collective's Groundbreakers Playwrights Group and at the Lark Play Development Center. Central Avenue Breakdown (book by Kevin Ray, Andrea Lepcio and Dominic Taylor with additional story by Suellen Vance and music/lyrics by Kevin Ray) performed at the Daegu International Musical Festival and New York Music Theatre Festival. Andrea is a member of the Dramatists Guild and was the Dramatists Guild Fellows Program Director for ten years. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist, a member of BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Librettist Workshop, the League of Professional Theater Women, New York Theatre Experience Advisory Board and an alumna of the Lark's Playwrights' Workshop and the Women's Project Playwrights' Lab. M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing, Carnegie Mellon University. B.A. Human Ecology, College of the Atlantic. She lives in Seal Cove, Maine and travels frequently. www.andrealepcio.com

THE GOLD was conceived and written by Dr. Philip Yosowitz over a five-year period and completed over a decade ago. Philip teamed up with his daughter, Laura Yosowitz, founder of Vital Arts Collaborative and Arts with an Impact, as producer to develop the new work. In 2008, Andrea Lepcio joined the team as book writer. To date, they have taken The Gold from a 450-page, handwritten score through three development readings, demo recordings, special events and two productions in Houston, TX. The 2009 production was held at Houston's prestigious outdoor city venue, Miller Outdoor Theatre, seating almost 2,000, and was sponsored by the Miller Outdoor Theatre and the Boniuk Center for Religious Tolerance at Rice University. The musical made its New York City debut with a developmental reading at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in July of 2015. For more information, please visit www.thegoldthemusical.com.

The New York Musical Festival nurtures the creation, production, and public presentation of stylistically, thematically, and culturally diverse new musicals to ensure the future vitality of musical theater. Now in its thirteenth year, the Festival is the premier musical theater event in the world. The preeminent site for launching new musicals and discovering new talent, the Festival provides an affordable platform for artists to mount professional productions that reach their peers, industry leaders, and musical theater fans. More than 90 Festival shows have gone on to productions on and Off-Broadway, in regional theaters in all 50 states, and in more than 24 countries worldwide. Festival alumni have received a wide array of awards including the Tony Award® and the Pulitzer Prize. In 2013, NYMF received a special Drama Desk Award in recognition of its work "creating and nurturing new musical theatre, ensuring the future of this essential art form."

NYMF is the flagship program of National Music Theater Network, Inc., a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization. NYMF 2015 is sponsored by The City of New York Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment, Fuzzrocket, PRG, TheaterMania, and Clear Channel Spectacolor, and is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. The NYMF PASS is a great way to experience The New York Musical Festival. With a NYMF PASS, you can get into the theater before individual ticket holders. Passes also offer the exclusive ability to book tickets before they go on sale to the public. NYMF Passholder ticket booking begins June 6. Individual tickets go on sale June 20. The 2016 New York Musical Festival will take place July 11 - August 7. For more information, please visit: www.nymf.org

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