Raye Birk and More Star in Theater Latte Da's WHEN THE MOON HITS YOUR EYE, Opening Tonight

Theater Latté Da opens its inaugural year of NEXT: New Musicals in the Making with When the Moon Hits Your Eye by Jon Marans.

When the Moon Hits Your Eye is a multi-ethnic play with music set in an old tenement walk-up in Hell's Kitchen, New York City. The drama/comedy, tells the story of a widowed ItalIan Barber, who finally wants to marry the true love of his life - Felizbela Carvalho - his mistress for the past twenty-five years. However, the course of true love never runs smoothly. The barber, his mistress and the other five off-beat lovebirds in this play find themselves consumed with the churning, inner turmoil of passion.

When the Moon Hits Your Eye is not a musical but a play infused with music, much like Marans' play Old Wicked Songs, for which Theater Latté Da won the 2009 IVEY Award for Overall Excellence. Marans states, "With this new initiative, Theater Latté Da is one of the rare theater companies that have the expertise and the interest to help writers explore the musical aspects of a show, to allow and to help guide a show to find both its emotional center and its musical voice."

When the Moon Hits Your Eye by Jon Marans will run tonight, April 12-14, 2013, Starring Raye Birk, Michelle Cassioppi, Steven Grant Douglas, Emily Gunyou Halaas, Nancy Marvy, Sara Ochs and Rudolph Searles III, with Denise Prosek on piano. Directed by Peter Rothstein and Benjamin Shaw.

The festival will feature readings of three new ventures into musical storytelling. Audiences will have the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the creative process and witness new musicals in the making. The other musicals included in the festival are...

C.
Book & Lyrics by Bradley Greenwald
Music by Robert Elhai
Adapted from the play Cyrano de Bergerac
by Edmond Rostand
April 19-21, 2013

Bessie's Birthday
Book & Lyrics by Katie Baldwin Eng
Music by Jeff Tang
April 26-28, 2013

Performances at The Lab Theater, 700 North 1st Street, Minneapolis. Tickets: 3-Show Passes are only $25 and allow you to see a reading of each new venture into musical storytelling. Single tickets to each reading are also available for $14 each.* *Single ticket price includes a $2 processing fee.