UnsungMusicalsCo. Inc. (www.UnsungMusicals.org) will present the world premiere of the original score from Gatsby, The Musical at the Peter Norton Space (555 West 42nd Street) on September 30 at 7pm and 10pm as part of the 2011 New York Musical Theatre Festival.
Inspired by the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, the unproduced musical adaptation has a book by Tony Award winner Hugh Wheeler (Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music), music by Grammy Award nominee Lee Pockriss (Ernest in Love, “Catch a Falling Star”) and lyrics by Tony Award nominee Carolyn Leigh (Little Me, Peter Pan). UMC artistic director Ben West (How Now, Dow Jones, Platinum) will direct the concert presentation with musical direction and arrangements by Fran Minarik (Making the Boys).
The world premiere concert of Gatsby will feature the rich, jazz-infused score written for this classic roaring '20s tale of passion, decadence and desire. Song titles include “Toute Suite, Old Sport”, “Jazz Age”, “Myrtle’s Parade”, “Wish Me”, “Somewhere There’s a Party” and “The Fellow in the Yellow Duesenberg”.
Tickets for Gatsby: The Songs in Concert will go on-sale September 1. For more information, visit www.UnsungMusicals.org. Performers will be announced soon!
The musical adaptation of The Great Gatsby was announced to begin rehearsals in December 1969 toward a spring 1970 Broadway opening. However, the production was postponed and subsequent plans were made for an October-November 1970 Broadway opening following September out-of-town engagements at the Colonial Theatre in Boston and the National Theatre in Washington, DC. Budgeted at $600,000 and produced by band leader and clarinetist Artie Shaw, it was to have been directed by Gene Frankel with a set design by Robin Wagner. The musical adaptation never came to fruition. UMC’s world premiere concert is not the musical adaption of The Great Gatsby and does not include any of Mr. Wheeler’s book material.
Unsung Musicals (Ben West, Artistic Director) is a not-for-profit production company dedicated to the preservation of musical theatre through the presentation of infrequently performed works. Focusing primarily on overlooked projects from the Golden Age, both hits and substantive misses, UMC treats each property as a new musical thereby providing a unique collaboration between the artists of today and those of the past. UMC has also created a new initiative aimed at researching, assembling and restoring the material from unpublished and out-of-print musical shows: The Archival Project. www.UnsungMusicals.org
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