Six New Productions of Rock Musical LIZZIE Planned

By: Apr. 25, 2016
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Six licensed productions of the musical, LIZZIE, are slated for 2016-17. LIZZIE, a rock show retelling of the infamous Lizzie Borden axe murders, became available for licensing in February.

After critically acclaimed productions in New York, Cleveland, Houston, Portland, San Francisco, and Denmark, LIZZIE continues its expansion with productions in Santa Barbara and San Jose, Phoenix, St. Louis, Tampa, and Washington, DC.

Here are the details:

A/C Theatre Company, Phoenix, AZ, 8/20/2016 - 9/4/2016

Jobsite Theater, Tampa, FL, 10/14/2016 - 10/31/2016

Out of the Box Theater, Santa Barbara, CA, 11/3/2016 - 13/2016

Pinky Swear Productions, Washington, DC, 1/14/2017 - 2/6/2017

City Lights Theater Company, San Jose, CA, 7/13/17 - 8/27/2017

New Line Theatre, St. Louis MO, 8/3/2017 - 8/19/2017

LIZZIE, which its creators describe as "an epic rock concept album come to life on stage," debuted at the Living Theater in New York in 2009, where it received three Drama Desk Award nominations. The following year LIZZIE was presented in the National Alliance for Musical Theatre's (NAMT) Festival of New Musicals.

The New York Times called LIZZIE, "A gothic rock ritual with a 'riotgirl' attitude." TimeOut NY described it as "a fetching, brawny rock musical," and KQED in San Francisco said, "It's rare for show tunes to require this much intellectual engagement, but every turn of phrase is a revelation. You know more, you feel more, and like Borden, you want to get closer to the abyss. Listen to her sing to pigeons in a barn loft ... and you'll want to take her hand and gently place it on an axe."

In 1892 on a sweltering August day in a small New England town, a well-to-do elderly man and his second wife were brutally murdered with an axe in broad daylight. Lizzie Borden, their youngest daughter, was the primary suspect. She was arrested and tried, but, with no witnesses to the hideous crime, she was acquitted. The murders remain unsolved to this day. Though the actual history of Lizzie Borden provided the writers with inspiration and raw material, her legend, which comes down to us as a jump rope rhyme, is the imaginative core of LIZZIE:

History tells us Lizzie Borden was innocent, but the legend leaves no doubt about her guilt.

LIZZIE has been developed with the assistance of tiny mythic theatre company, HERE, and Took An Axe Productions (Hillary Richard & Peter McCabe) and producers Brisa Trinchero/Corey Brunish (Make Musicals) and Van Dean/Kenny Howard (Broadway Consortium). LIZZIE was presented at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre's Festival of New Musicals in 2010 and further developed by Village Theatre, Issaquah, Washington (Robb Hunt, Executive Producer • Steve Tomkins, Artistic Director).



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