MARY AND MAX Will Come to Austria's Theatre Linz

European Premiere of Bobby Cronin and Crystal Skillman's MARY AND MAX the musical presented in a startling new production at Austria's Theatre Linz, the award-winning Musical Theatre Department of Landestheater Linz/Austria November 8 - December 31, 2019.

In 2018, Mary and Max was selected for Pace New Musicals and received the Media Prize at the MUT Competition for New Musicals at the Gärtnerplatztheater in Munich. In the same year the acclaimed world premiere took place at Theatre Calgary, Canada. Even before the premiere in Calgary, Cronin and Skillman had participated in the summer of 2018 at the MUT competition at the Munich Gärtnerplatztheater, where new musicals will be judged by a jury of musical experts and critics. The jury member Matthias Davids, musical director at the Landestheater in Linz, had already noticed the musical adaptation of one of his favorites in the selection of the five candidates from over 40 submitted musicals. After receiving the Critics' Award, Landestheater Linz immediately contacted the authors, and it quickly became clear that Mary and Max would be celebrating their European and German premieres in Linz.

Dramaturge Arne Beeker, translator Jana Mischke, and director Andy Hallwax were open to Cronin and Skillman revising the musical, grounding the piece with a modern storytelling device.

"Of course, we were happy to meet the desire of the writing team to make fundamental changes to the book and music...'Musicals are not written, but rewritten.'"

Mary and Max is a daring piece as funny as it is tragic about friendship, bullying, fitting in, family, and the importance of storytelling. Starting in modern time, the story then goes to the 1970s where Australian girl Mary Daisy Dinkle believes her father when he tells her that babies are found on the bottoms of beer glasses in Australia. Now she wants to find out where the babies come from in America. From a New York phone book, she happens to pick the address of Max, a 44-year-old Jewish man living with the newly diagnosed Aspergers, whose social contacts are limited to the weekly meeting of his Overeaters Anonymous led by his psychiatrist Dr. Hazelhoff. After a panic attack, he actually answers Mary's question: to his knowledge, babies hatch out of eggs in America, except Jewish babies who are hatched by Rabbis, Catholic babies made by nuns, and the atheist babies made by prostitutes. The misfit pen pals create a friendship that lasts, but will Mary finally meet Max in New York City?

The cast features: Karsten Kentzel, Celina dos Santos, David Arnsperger, Sanne Mieloo, Gernot Romic, Daniela Dett, Lynsey Thurgar, Hanna Kastner, Christian Frohlich, Lukas Sandmann. Orchstrated by Juheon Han. Choreographed by Jerome Knols. Costumes by Julia Klug. Set design by Kaja Dymnicki. Translation by Jana Mischke. Direction by Andy Hallwax.