Listen: PASTICHENYC Presents A New Musical Comedy Podcast GRACE UNDER PRESSURE

From the acclaimed PASTICHENYC, who recently brought audiences Jane Austen's Persuasion Song Cycle and Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth Song Cycle comes the World Premiere of sparkling 8-part comedic, musical, radio drama series, original and unique, GRACE UNDER PRESSURE follows the simple story of a woman alone in New York in the '90s, an age of diminished expectations.

PASTICHENYC is pleased to announce their World Premiere podcast GRACE UNDER PRESSURE, written and directed by Emily King, the simple story of a woman alone in NYC in the '90s, falling down the socio-economic ladder to find her life's work and true love. The irreplaceable Alice King stars in the role of a lifetime. Just in time. Resurrected piano bars songs provide a Greek (diner) chorus. Corporate hanky-panky, art-world exploitation, pyramid schemes, and the AIDS crisis. What's not to like? The first two episodes will be released on June 15th wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, and an episode a week for the subsequent seven weeks. Listen, rate, review, and subscribe now at https://grace-under-pressure.simplecast.com/.

Inappropriate affairs, office sexual politics, pyramid scheme fraud, cynical art-world pay-to-play, sweatshop fashion, and even the AIDS crisis, dealing with the light touch, suggestive humor, and speedy delivery of screwball comedy.

GRACE UNDER PRESSURE began as an Off-Off Broadway project in 1992, staged initially as an 8-part radio play complete with manic sound man, theme song, and additional musical interludes. The part of Grace was written for the sublime Alice King and, thirty years later, it became clear that it was time for Grace to make a comeback. A cast of first-class New York voice talent is led by Alice King as Grace McMoon, our heroine who loses her job in every episode and slides down the socio-economic ladder to find true love, fulfillment, and job satisfaction. Each episode is complemented by the Singer-Songwriter acting as a kind of Greek chorus, with a musical interlude from a trove of original '90s piano-bar ballads. Created, written, produced, edited, and directed - and inspired - by New York City working women.

Emily, who wrote the piece for her cousin Alice, had this to say about it "One morning I awoke from a dream with a theatre project fully formed in my head. For Alice. Grace Under Pressure. Eight-part radio series. Loses her job in every episode. And finds her life's work and true love. Theme song, choral commentary piano bar songs, Radio Theater Live on Stage. So I wrote it. We did the first few episodes as part of a Women's Work short-play festival. And that's as far as we got. Grace Under Pressure took its place in my fully-packed file cabinet drawer of semi-produced plays." To read more about the germination of the piece and the cousins, visit here.

The musical podcast includes NYC Field Recordings/Sound Design by Milo Barney. The recording Engineer is Atticus Mulkey, Edited by Emily Duncan.

EPISODE 1: FLIRTING WITH DISASTER

In her high-pressure job working for an international corporation, editor Grace McMoon is on the phone, working and complaining to her friend Trudy, when a high-level executive (and inappropriate Christmas Party liaison) drops by to check in on her. When her pink slip arrives, Grace throws him out of her office, to be comforted by her best friend in the mailroom, Louie. She decides to work freelance from home, but gets a call telling her she's been robbed of her computer. What's the next job she can do to maintain her Upper East Side lifestyle? The Singer/Songwriter warns: "Trouble's Back in Town".

Starring

Alice King as Grace McMoon

Tom Bozell as Wolfram Weltmeister

Roger Casey as Louie Corazon

And Narrated by George Sheffey

Singer/Songwriter: Emily King

EPISODE 2: A CHILLY RECEPTION

Grace is now receptionist at the weasely white-shoe law office where Trudy is a perma-temp proofreader. Though most of the partners are in jail or under indictment, when remaining shyster Myron McWeeney asks Grace to "fill in" for his secretary, Trudy and Grace go into sexual harassment red alert maneuvers. Even if they work, will it be worth it? The Singer/Songwriter asks: "I Wonder When".

Starring

Alice King as Grace McMoon

George Sheffey as Mr. McWeeney

Dorian DeMichele as Trudy

And Narrated by George Sheffey

Singer/Songwriter: Emily King

EMILY KING (Creator/Director) worked for many years as a writer and editor in the recording industry for RCA Victor and Sony Classics, assisting in recording more than 20 Broadway Cast albums and working with some of the great contemporary lyricists. She is a published translator of French, German, and Italian texts (Chérubin, Roméo et Juliette, William Tell) and subtitles (Tosca, Turandot). She was also happy to act as a new submissions reader at Manhattan Theater Club for Musical Theater Developmental Director Clifford Lee Johnson III.

She directed some 20 original Off-Off Broadway plays and musicals and wrote or adapted and directed Bridie Now and Then, The Hero of the Slocum, Grace Under Pressure, Paris Malice, and an on-site, full-length version of Maxwell Anderson and Arthur Schwartz's High Tor. Almost all of her own theatrical work has had a musical through-line, starting with Fighting Words, in which an aging insomniac Dorothy Parker justifies her life through her writing to her imaginary obituary writer, interlaced with early songs by George and Ira Gershwin. In the opera world, she was assistant director for the Glimmerglass production of Così fan tutte, and put together thematically-linked opera scene evenings for Mannes and new operatic works for Manhattan School of Music. More recently Ms. King has completed song cycles for staged concerts, writing lyrics adapting Edith Wharton's House of Mirth to music by Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Jane Austen's Persuasion, set to chamber music by Ludwig van Beethoven.

In developing PasticheNYC, she created new ways to recruit first-rate performers and great music - and the infinitude of visuals, and sound available in the new technology - to bring new life to Jane Austen's Persuasion, Edith Wharton's House of Mirth, and now her own original musical radio series, Grace Under Pressure, in an age of uncertainty, isolation, and hunger for beauty. New technology and CoVid lockdown led her to develop what may be an entirely new art form from influences as old as magic lantern slideshows and the patchwork quilt: Pastiche! AEA, BMI, UFT.

PASTICHENYC LLC was founded in 2020 to create exciting new performances based on classical literature and music, with a diverse cast of singers and actors, blending vintage images and music in modern media. Bringing the classics to a new generation in a new century, PasticheNYC used cyber-technology to safely record and edit the work of artists and musicians dispersed in the CoVid-19 pandemic, and to stream it to the world.

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