With THE BURNT PART BOYS, Playwrights Horizons, Vineyard Theatre and New York Stage and Film continue their commitment to developing unique and ground-breaking new musicals. At Playwrights Horizons, these include such musicals as Grey Gardens, James Joyce's The Dead, Floyd Collins, Assassins, Once on This Island and Sunday in the Park with George, and at the Vineyard Theatre these include such musicals as Avenue Q, [title of show], The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, Eli's Comin' and Dream True. New York Stage and Film has developed new musicals by artists including Pete Townshend, Duncan Sheik and Steven Slater, John Patrick Shanley and Henry Krieger, and Christopher Durang.
THE BURNT PART BOYS is set in West Virginia in 1962. The musical follows a group of teenagers whose fathers were killed ten years earlier in a tragic coal mining accident. When they learn that the mine will be reopened, they set out secretly in the hope of seeing the site, and keeping it closed. A deeply moving and powerful odyssey, THE BURNT PART BOYS is an unforgettable coming of age tale set to a haunting and distinctive bluegrass and pop-inspired score.
Composer Chris Miller and Lyricist Nathan Tysen were the 2008 winners of The Vineyard's Kitty Carlisle Hart Musical Theatre Award, as well as the Jonathan Larson Award and the Richard Rodgers Award. Their collaborations include Fugitive Songs, presented Off-Broadway last season, and The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (book by Joe Calarco), which received a workshop production at Barrington Stage in 2008. Book writer Mariana Elder's plays, sketch comedy and musicals have been performed across the country, including Barrington Stage Co., Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Director's Lab, Theatre for a New City and Manhattan Theater Source.
Casting for the New York City production is to be announced.
www.playwrightshorizons.org
www.vineyardtheatre.org
www.newyorkstageandfilm.org
