Photo Flash: New Line's Four-Woman Rock Opera LIZZIE, Opening Tonight

New Line Theatre, "the bad boy of musical theatre," opens its 27th season of adult, alternative musical theatre, with the St. Louis premiere of the four-woman rock opera LIZZIE, a very different take on the Lizzie Borden legend, running Sept. 28-Oct. 21, 2017, at the Marcelle Theater in the Grand Center Arts District.

It's a sweltering August in 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts. A prominent businessman and his wife are brutally axed to death in their home. Their daughter Lizzie Borden is the prime suspect. Lizzie's trial is a coast-to-coast media sensation, and her story becomes an American legend.

LIZZIE is ferocious, powerful musical theatre as rock concert, four women and a six-piece rock band, chock full of rage, sex, betrayal, and bloody murder, an American mythology set to a blistering rock score, a radically new American musical with a sound owing less to Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber than to Bikini Kill, the Runaways, and Heart. The show has music by Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer and Alan Stevens Hewitt, lyrics by Cheslik-DeMeyer and Tim Maner, book and additional music by Maner, and additional lyrics by Hewitt.

The New York Times called the show "a gothic rock ritual with a 'riotgirl' attitude ... an eerie hybrid of rock club and a turn-of-the-century New England parlor. . . Presented with wall-rattling glee...deliciously watchable." The Village Voice talked about the show's "lush tunes which retch sex, rage, heat, misanthropy, and incest ... Surreal glee and gallows humor ... Finally, a rock musical you'd wanna mosh to." TimeOutNY called it "a fetching, brawny rock musical."

The cast of New Line's LIZZIE includes Anna Skidis Vargas as Lizzie, Kimi Short as Bridget, Larissa White as Alice, and Marcy Wiegert as Emma. The show is directed by Mike Dowdy-Windsor, with music direction by Sarah Nelson, scenic and lighting design by Rob Lippert, costume design by Sarah Porter, and sound design by Ryan Day.

LIZZIE contains adult language and content.

TICKETS

LIZZIE runs Sept, 28-Oct. 21, 2017, on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings, at 8:00 p.m., at the Marcelle Theater, 3310 Samuel Shepard Drive, just three blocks east of Grand, in the Grand Center Arts District. (See New Line's website for directions.) Sept. 28 is a preview. Tickets are $25 for adults and $20 for students/seniors on Fridays and Saturdays; and $20 for adults and $15 for students/seniors on Thursdays.

For other information, visit New Line Theatre's full-service website at www.newlinetheatre.com. All programs are subject to change.

ABOUT NEW LINE THEATRE

New Line Theatre is a professional company dedicated to involving the people of the St. Louis region in the exploration and creation of daring, provocative, socially and politically relevant works of musical theatre. New Line was created back in 1991 at the vanguard of a new wave of nonprofit musical theatre just starting to take hold across the country. New Line has given birth to several world premiere musicals over the years and has brought back to life several shows that were not well served by their original New York productions. Altogether, New Line has produced 82 musicals since 1991, and the company has been given its own entry in the Cambridge Guide to American Theatre and the annual Theater World. New Line receives funding from the Regional Arts Commission and the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.

New Line continues its partnership with the Webster University Department of Music and their Bachelor of Music in Music Direction for Musical Theatre degree program.

New Line's 2017-2018 also includes Anything Goes in March, Yeast Nation in June, and a public reading of The Zombies of Penzance for one night, Jan. 8. For more information, visit www.newlinetheatre.com.

Anna Skidis Vargas as Lizzie Borden, Kimi Short as Bridget, and Marcy Wiegert as Emma Borden, singing "The House of Borden," in LIZZIE, New Line Theatre, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Ritter Lindberg.

Larissa White as Alice, singing "If You Knew," in LIZZIE, New Line Theatre, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Ritter Lindberg.

Marcy Wiegert as Emma Borden and Anna Skidis Vargas (in front) as Lizzie Borden, singing "Burn the Old Thing Up," in LIZZIE, New Line Theatre, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Ritter Lindberg.

Larissa White as Alice, singing "The House of Borden," in LIZZIE, New Line Theatre, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Ritter Lindberg.

Anna Skidis Vargas as Lizzie Borden, and Larissa White (in back) as Alice, singing "The Soul of the White Bird," in LIZZIE, New Line Theatre, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Ritter Lindberg.

Marcy Wiegert as Emma Borden, singing "Sweet Little Sister," in LIZZIE, New Line Theatre, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Ritter Lindberg.

Larissa White as Alice, singing to Anna Skidis Vargas as Lizzie Borden, the song, "Will You Stay?" in LIZZIE, New Line Theatre, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Ritter Lindberg.

Anna Skidis Vargas as Lizzie Borden, in the song, "Mercury Rising," in LIZZIE, New Line Theatre, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Ritter Lindberg.

Anna Skidis Vargas as Lizzie Borden, singing, Somebody Will Do Something," in LIZZIE, New Line Theatre, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Ritter Lindberg.

Kimi Short as Bridget, singing "The Fall of the House of Borden," in LIZZIE, New Line Theatre, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Ritter Lindberg.

Kimi Short as Bridget, singing "The Fall of the House of Borden," in LIZZIE, New Line Theatre, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Ritter Lindberg.

Anna Skidis Vargas as Lizzie Borden, and Marcy Wiegert as Emma Borden, singing "Watchmen for the Morning," in LIZZIE, New Line Theatre, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Ritter Lindberg.

Anna Skidis Vargas as Lizzie Borden, singing "Into Your Wildest Dreams," in LIZZIE, New Line Theatre, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Ritter Lindberg.

Anna Skidis Vargas as Lizzie Borden, singing "Into Your Wildest Dreams," in LIZZIE, New Line Theatre, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Ritter Lindberg.