The Andak Stage Company announces a seventh world premiere to open its fourth season. LIBERTY INN: THE MUSICAL is a full-length musical adapted from Goldoni's comic masterpiece La locandiera ("The Landlady") by Dakin Matthews (book and lyrics) and B. T. Ryback (music). This collaboration is the result of a meeting while the two were performing together in The History Boys at the Ahmanson Theatre. They wrote this musical, mostly in cyberspace, while Mr. Ryback was working in Los Angeles and New York, and Mr. Matthews was touring the world with Sam Mendes' Bridge Project.
Associate Artistic Director Anne McNaughton will direct the world premiere of this tuneful and rollicking courtship comedy with strong feminist themes, transferred from 18th Century Italy into a time in the early days of the new American republic. Deborah May and Norman Snow star as the wily American innkeeper and the misogynistic Hessian Captain in an intriguing ‘battle of the sexes' waged in her fashionable inn in post-colonial Liberty, New York. The rest of the seven-member cast-which includes an English Count, a French Marquis, an Italian actress, and two servants-will be announced later. The show will play for seven weeks at Andak's NewPlace Studio Theatre in the NoHo Arts District.Dakin Matthews (Book & Lyrics, Co-Producer) is the Artistic Director of Andak Stage Company and a multiple award-winning playwright, who has produced five of his scripts at Andak: three originals (The Prince of L.A., A Magic Christmas, and The Savannah Option) and two translations (Spite for Spite and Don Juan the Trickster of Seville). Other scripts: The Liar and The Proof of the Promise, verse translations from the Spanish, were produced by the Antaeus Company and toured to the international Siglo de Oro Festival in El Paso; Uncommon Players was produced at the Old Globe Theatre and Shakespeare on the Beach, and The Great Fugue at ACT in San Francisco; his single play adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV has been produced across the country, including a Tony Award winning production at Lincoln Center Theater, for which he won a special Drama Desk Award. He is also a busy actor, teacher, dramaturge, and Shakespeare scholar, and was the Founding Artistic Director of the Antaeus Company.Deborah May (The Wily American Innkeeper) is an Associate Artist of The Old Globe, where she has appeared in ten productions. She also spent eight years at ACT in San Francisco, appearing in over 25 productions, and nine summers at PCPA in Santa Maria, appearing in over 20 productions. She has also worked on and off Broadway and at The Mark Taper Forum, Seattle Rep, Louisville Actors Theatre, the Guthrie Theatre, and the Huntington Theatre. Her TV credits include E.R., The Larry Sanders Show, Murder One, St. Elsewhere, and Guiding Light.
Norman Snow (The Hessian Captain) appeared in the critically acclaimed Andak Stage Company productions of Martin Crimp's The Misanthrope, John Lowell's The Letters, and Bernard Pomerance's The Elephant Man. On Broadway, Mr. Snow appeared in The School for Scandal, The Beggar's Opera, Macbeth, Inherit the Wind, The Robber Bridegroom, Edward II, The Three Sisters, Scenes and Revelations, The Time of You Life, Measure for Measure, and Next Time I'll Sing For You. Off-Broadway, he was seen in One Crack Out, The Lower Depths, The Fantod, Timon of Athens, and Cymbeline. He has appeared regionally at the Goodman Theatre (Richard III, Holiday, Lone Canoe), Great Lakes Theatre (Man and Superman, Hamlet), Annenberg Theatre (The Power and the Glory), The Old Globe (Art, Henry V, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream), Pasadena Playhouse (David's Mother), Yale Rep (Major Barbara), Long Wharf Theatre (Reclaimed), Mark Taper Forum (Richard II), South Coast Rep (The Company of Heaven), Matrix Theatre (Habeas Corpus), and the Globe West Hollywood (If Only). His films include The Europeans, Hard Choices, The Last Starfighter, and Manhunter. On TV he has appeared in many series and soaps, including Law and Order, L.A. Law, Quantum Leap, Star Trek, Days of Our Lives, and The Young and the Restless. Mr. Snow graduated from Juilliard as part of the first drama class (Group One), and was a founding member of John Houseman's The Acting Company and of The Antaeus Company. He was also a member of the renowned choir at St. Charles Borromeo in L.A. under maestro Paul Salumunivich, with whom he sang on numerous picture soundtracks as well as with the L.A. Master Chorale and the L.A. Philharmonic in Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex.Videos