World premiere musical part of Stage 2 lineup at Barrington Stage Company

The premiere of a new musical, Mormons, Mothers and Monsters; the Berkshire premiere of Chaim Potok’s My Name is Asher Lev; two cabarets, Surviving the Avalanche and Hell Raisers; as well as the plays Zero Hour and Going to St. Ives will be produced by Barrington Stage Company (BSC) at Stage 2 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, this summer. The complete Stage 2 season lineup was announced this week by artistic director Julianne Boyd and managing director Tristan Wilson.

 

BSC’s Musical Theatre Lab, under the mentorship of Tony Award-winning composer/lyricist William Finn and now in its sixth season, presents Mormons, Mothers and Monsters, a quirky musical comedy with music by Will Aronson and book and lyrics by Sam Salmond, from July 14 through 31. Aronson wrote the music for previous Musical Theatre Lab productions My Scary Girl and Mary Testa’s Sleepless Variations. He is currently the musical arranger for the new William Finn/James Lapine musical, Little Miss Sunshine. Salmond is finishing his master’s degree at NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.

 

Adapted and directed by Aaron Posner, My Name is Asher Lev will run from August 18 through September 4. Based on Potok’s novel, Posner’s adaptation follows the journey of a young Jewish painter torn between his Hasidic upbringing and the need to fulfill his artistic genius. Posner has won Barrymore Awards and Helen Hayes Awards for both playwrighting and directing.

 

Musical Theatre Lab will also present two musical cabarets on Stage 2. The songwriting team of composer Vadim Feichtner—musical director of the BSC productions of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, The Memory Show, and Mormons, Mothers and Monsters—and lyricist Jeremy Desmon has created a musical cabaret called Surviving the Avalanche, with songs on topics as varied as love, sex, career, and family holidays in Kansas. Four vocalists will perform Surviving the Avalanche from  June 10 through 12; Matt Castle is music director. Award-winning songwriter Joe Iconis makes his BSC debut with Hell Raisers—A Night of Songs by Joe Iconis from August 11 through 13. Quirky portraits of normal people, outcasts, vagabonds, suburbanites, weirdos, fat kids, and porn stars are set to hummable music. 

 

Two other plays slated for Stage 2 were announced earlier this winter; the Off-Broadway hit Zero Hour, starring Drama Desk Award-winner Jim Brochu as Zero Mostel, will run from May 18 through June 5, and Lee Blessing’s Going to St. Ives, directed by Tyler Marchant (BSC’s A Picasso and Freud’s Last Session), will be performed from June 22 through July 10.

 

On the Barrington Stage Company Mainstage, the classic musical Guys and Dolls, directed by Tony Award-winner John Rando, will open June 15 and close July 16. The world premiere of Mark St. Germain’s drama The Best of Enemies runs July 21 through August 6, and the musical The Game, based on the 18th-century scandalous novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses, will run August 11 through 28.

 

The fall production on the BSC Mainstage will be the New England premiere of the dramatization of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, adapted for the stage by Nigel Williams, and directed by Barrington Stage associate artist Christopher Innvar (whose previous BSC directing credits include The Whipping Man and The Collyer Brothers). Lord of the Flies will be presented from October 5 through 23.

 

For ticket information, call the Barrington Stage Company box office at or visit www.barringtonstageco.org.