The Barn Stage Company Announces 2016 Summer Musicals

The Barn Stage Company's artistic director J. Scott Lapp and Executive director Jordan Beck announced the company's 2016 Summer season lineup today. Featuring two original productions in The Truax's intimate 120-seat theatre, the season includes the world premiere of Biting Broadway!

The First Successful Vampire Musical by Richard Hochberg, with music by Gerald Sternbach and lyrics by Jordan Beck; the west coast premiere of For Tonight, a new musical with book by Whitney Rhodes, Spencer Williams and Shenelle Williams and music and lyrics by Shenelle Williams and Spencer Williams. Based in Temecula, The Barn Stage Company is a new professional nonprofit theater company, a destination for exhilarating performances, inspired new works and powerful theatrical experiences.

The Barn Stage Company opens its 2016 Summer season in June with the world premiere of Biting Broadway: The First Successful Vampire Musical. When Count Benedict Von Klapp realizes there is a severe lack of successful vampire musicals, as in NONE, he decides to take matters into his own hands by biting the best of Broadway in hopes to finally put a good musical about vampires on the Great White Way. But when his plan doesn't go entirely as planned, he ends up with a band of misfits who have only dreamed of working on Broadway. Will they be able to put their creative differences aside and join together for the greater good?

Jordan Beck, The Barn Stage Company's Executive Director, is a lyricist whose work has been seen as part of the 2009 Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project; at the ASCAP/DreamWorks Musical Theatre Workshop and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. as part of the ASCAP's Broadway Today & Tomorrow Series! The Music is by Gerald Sternbach one of Los Angeles' foremost musical directors. Winner of the 2007 Joel Hirschborn award for excellence in musical theater by the LA Drama Critics Circle, he has also won LA Ovation Awards and two Garland awards.

He has worked with Mel Brooks on his HBO special, acted as the associate conductor on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Merlin and The Tap Dance Kid on Broadway. His rave-reviewed, world premiere musical in collaboration with Elin Hampton, Mommy, Mommy the musical, ran successfully at the Hudson Backstage Theater in the spring of 2007, and has been optioned for further production. The book is by Richard Hochberg, who was recently nominated for an LA Ovation Award for Scary Musical: The Musical in which he wrote the book & lyrics for and co-wrote the music. He is also an accomplished Director and Actor appearing in The Heidi Chronicles, Little Shop of Horrors and Torch Song Trilogy.

The West Coast Premiere of local songwriting team Spencer and Shenelle Williams' For Tonight, a new musical follows in July. When their parents die of a mysterious illness in their small Welsh village, surviving siblings Thomas, Haydon, and Nettie are forced to fend for themselves. Inspired by the gypsies who once shared their home, Haydon heads off to Liverpool, guitar in hand, to find what he's been missing. There he meets Mirela who speaks to his wandering soul. Through a riveting indie-rock/folk score, "For Tonight" explores the indelible power of home.

The work which has been seen overseas and on the east coast has been praised for its "genre-defying score" (Goodspeed Backstage Blog) and "stunning premiere of completely glorious music"(Jan Cowan, Isle of Man Arts Council). A finalist for the New Horizons Music Festival, the show was part of the 2014 New York Musical Theatre Festival where it also had an Encore Concert Presentation. The new musical was then seen as part of the 2015 Festival of New Musicals at Goodspeed Musicals in Hartford, Connecticut. And was most recently seen in its UK Premiere at TheatreFest '15 on the Isle of Man and at Michigan State University as part of the ?máGEN Program.

Full Season Subscriptions and ticket packages will be available in January 2016. Subscription packages offer savings off single ticket prices, exclusive benefits and personalized customer service. For more information about subscriptions, visit thebarnstagecompany.com or email info@thebarnstagecompany.com. Single tickets to the summer series will go on sale in early March.

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