Eric Rosen Update as KCRep Presents 'Clay'

Kansas City, MO  Hip-hop has arrived at Kansas City Repertory Theatre. Eric Rosen kicks off his adventurous first season as the Rep’s artistic director with the powerful new hip-hop musical Clay, written and performed by Matt Sax and developed in collaboration with and directed by Rosen. The show contains loud music, adult language and strong content.
 
Clay will run September 6-28 at Copaken Stage at 13th and Walnuts Streets. After its Kansas City premiere, Clay will move to New York as part of Lincoln Center Theater’s new programming initiative LCT3, which is devoted to producing the work of emerging playwrights, directors and designers. 
 
Clay was created by the celebrated young writer/performer Matt Sax, whose solo tour-de-force performance was awarded Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Award, and received critical acclaim for Clay’s recent run at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles. According to Variety magazine, “Sax…redefines charisma for a hip new age.”
 
Loosely based on Shakespeare’s stories of Henry IV and Falstaff, Clay employs the humor, intensity and lyricism of contemporary hip-hop music to tell the coming-of-age story of a teenage boy named Clifford. Escaping the dysfunction of his family, Clifford flees the suburbs and seeks his future in the city where he falls under the tutelage of a rapper named Sir John. Together, they transform Clifford into Clay, a rising hip-hop star.
 
“Hip-hop is a powerful and emotional musical genre that has now become a global phenomenon,” said Rosen.  “Like listening to Shakespeare’s verse, your ear has to tune to it. But, before you know it, you understand every word and every idea in Matt’s beautiful rhyming form.”
 
After seeing a performance of Clay in 2004 at Northwestern University, fresh from its triumphant debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Rosen began collaborating with Sax to further develop the musical. Clay had its American debut in 2006 in an About Face Theatre/Lookingglass Theatre co-production. [At that time, Rosen was artistic director of About Face Theatre.]  “Even though hip-hop is a form of music about which many people have little understanding, I knew immediately that this story had potential for wide appeal,” remarked Rosen.  “Audiences members of all ages have loved Matt’s performance.”
 
In addition to Sax and Rosen, the creative team for Clay includes Joshua Horvath (Orchestration and Sound Designer), Meghan Raham (Scenic Designer), Emily Rebholz (Costume Designer) and Jason Lyons (Lighting Designer), with additional music by Johnny Williams and John Schmidt.
 
The Sprint Foundation is sponsor of Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s 2008-09 Copaken Stage Series which includes Clay, The Glass Menagerie and The Borderland.
 
Tickets for Clay are now on sale for $25; a limited number of back row seats cost $15. For more information about the show or to purchase tickets, call 816-235-2700, go to www.kcrep.org or visit Rep Box Offices at Copaken Stage at 13th and Main Streets, or Spencer Theatre in the lobby of the James C. Olson Performing Arts Center at 4949 Cherry Street.
 
Now in its 44th season, Kansas City Repertory Theatre is its region’s only member of the League of Resident Theatres and serves as the professional theatre in residence at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC).    The company produces plays and events at Spencer Theatre, its mainstage theatre on the UMKC campus, and at Copaken Stage which opened in downtown Kansas City in February 2007. The mission of Kansas City Rep is to present productions of excellence that are diverse, literate and timely, and to provide educational and outreach services for students and our community.

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