WorkShop Theater Stages LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI, Now thru 11/23

THE WORKSHOP THEATER COMPANY has announced Philip W. Hall's LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI, A Musical Play, musical direction and orchestrations by Fran Minarik and directed by SusannA Frazer. LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI will play a limited engagement at The WorkShop Theater Main Stage (312 West 36th Street, 4th Floor). Performances begin tonight, November 1 and continue through Saturday, November 23.

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI is based on Mark Twain's memoir. Hair-raising, hilarious, life-changing and violent are just some of the currents steamboat pilot Sam Clemens will navigate in this musical journey. Young Sam Clemens and his brother Henry step onto a Mississippi steamboat and aboard the chance of a lifetime. As a cub apprentice, his burning ambition propels him to become a steamboat pilot, but he soon discovers that learning the great, relentless river will be harder than he ever imagined. Now Sam must plot a course through the dangerous currents, as mysterious as the Mississippi itself.

'This is not only a coming of age tale, but it's also a loss of innocence tale,' says writer Philip Hall who has been named a finalist for both the National New Play Network's Smith prize and Humana Festival's Heideman Award, and whose work has been performed at the Kennedy Center. 'In this case, what begins as a boyhood dream becomes more like a daunting task when it becomes real. But the piece is "early Twain," and there's a freshness and bounce to the prose, along with his trademark wit,' reflects Hall, who ultimately felt it was the language that inspired him to adapt the book to stage.

The production stars Dewy Cadell*, Nathan C. Crocker*, Max Demers, Richard Kent Green*, Andrew Hubacher*, Steven Louis Kane*, Bill Nabel* (Bdwy: Beauty and the Beast), and Jeff Paul* (*Performing courtesy of Actors' Equity Association).

Presented by The Workshop Theater Company's Musical Theater Wing - which is headed by Steven Petrillo and Associate Natalie Mosco, the production's Artistic Associate is DeLisa White, Production Manager is Laura E. Johnston and Assistant Production Manager is Laura Darrell. It features scenic design by John McDermott, costume design by Annette Westerby, sound design by Quentin Chiappetta and lighting design by Dennis Parichy. Chelsea Parrish is the production stage manager.

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI plays the following schedule:

Friday, November 1 @ 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 2 @ 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 3 @ 3:00 p.m.
Friday, November 8 @ 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 9 @ 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 9 @ 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 10@ 3:00 p.m.
Monday, November 11 @ 7:00 p.m.
Friday, November 15 @ 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 16 @ 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 16 @ 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 17@ 3:00 p.m.
Monday, November 18 @ 7:00 p.m.
Friday, November 22 @ 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 23 @ 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 23 @ 8:00 p.m

Tickets are $15-18 and are now available online at www.workshoptheater.org. Tickets may also be purchased in person at the theater ½ hour prior to performance. Running Time: 90 minutes. For more about the production, go to: http://workshoptheater.org/mainstage/2013/life_on_the_mississippi.

PHILIP W. HALL (Playwright) is the author of musicals, full-length plays, and 10-minute plays - including No Sugar, which was performed recently by The Collective NYC. His works have been produced around the country from The Kennedy Center to Sundance Children's Theater to California Theater Center. His published pieces include the comedies Inside The Department of the Exterior and Customer Service. He lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida with his wife, quilt artist Leslie A. Hall.

SUSANNA FrazeR (Director) has recently been appointed the Artistic Director of The Morningside Players, an AEA non-profit theatre company in Morningside Heights that is dedicated to providing quality productions of classic and new works. For TMP she has directed Mrs. Farnsworth, The Heiress, Arms and The Man, Cece, The Diary of Anais Nin, The Devil's Disciple and many other plays. TMP's revival of A Raisin in The Sun was nominated for an AUDELCO award as Best Revival. For the WorkShop Theater Co ? Off-Off-Bway, Life on the Mississippi (highly successful new musical to have a full production in Oct. 2013), The Tip, August Eve - a new musical. Other theaters: Memorial Day - for Intersections Int'l. - a one-person piece by Brian Delate and most recently, Inge, Wilde, Wilder, Durang and Ayckbourn plays for The Atlantic Theater Conservatory and NYU Tisch School of the Arts. As a Teaching Artist, she adapted and directed No Child... for fifteen students at Fordham H.S of the Arts. Susanna directed As Bees In Honey Drown for Brooklyn College, where she recently received her MFA in Theater and won the Joel Zwick Award for Outstanding Direction. In addition, she was made an adjunct professor there and taught acting to BA students.

About The WorkShop Theater Company: WorkShop Theater Company's mission is to provide a creative home for a diverse group of playwrights, directors and actors. The WorkShop has developed hundreds of plays, among them Eddie Antar's NY Times Critic's Pick, Drama Desk-nominated and NY Innovative Theatre Award-winning hit, The Navigator ("cruises in entertainingly high gear" - NY Times), Ken Jaworowski's Interchange, (NY Times Critic's Pick) and Allan Knee's The Man Who Was Peter Pan, which became the Academy Award-nominated, Finding Neverland, produced by Nellie Bellflower and receiving an Academy Award nomination for the screenplay by David Magee, both of whom are WorkShop Theater Company alumni.

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