Took An Axe Productions proudly presents a special limited 6-week engagement of the rock musical LIZZIE BORDEN. Written by Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer and Tim Maner with Alan Stevens Hewitt and directed by Tim Maner, this production will play Thursday, September 10 through Saturday, October 17 at The Living Theatre.
Lizzie Borden took an axe. Gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, gave her father forty-one. In 1892 on a sweltering August day in a small New England town, "somebody" brutally murdered a well-to-do elderly man and his second wife with an axe. Lizzie Borden, their young daughter, was named the primary suspect, arrested and tried. Without any witnesses to the hideous crime, she was acquitted and the murder remains unsolved to this day. Though Lizzie was ultimately declared innocent according to the law, her infamy lives on.
The rock musical LIZZIE BORDEN enters the horrifying Borden household to explore these notorious events through the eyes of Lizzie, her older sister Emma, Lizzie's close friend Alice and the housemaid Bridget. Through original songs performed by four fierce rockers accompanied by a live band, this driving musical reveals a tale of repression, patricide and two very bloody murders - and why Lizzie Borden may have taken up that axe.
Directed by Tim Maner, LIZZIE BORDEN features Marie-France Arcilla (Off-B'way: Shout! The Mod Musical, Sidd, The Ark; TV: "Law and Order: SVU," "Cashmere Mafia"), Lisa Birnbaum (TV: "Guiding Light;" numerous productions at Yale School of Drama and Yale Rep), Carrie Cimma (Nat'l tour: Sweeney Todd, The Wedding Singer, Oliver!, The Full Monty) and Jenny Fellner (B'way: Pal Joey, Mamma Mia!; Nat'l tour: All Shook Up). Casting by Sara Schatz at Jay Binder Casting.
Music is by Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer with Alan Stevens Hewitt. Lyrics are by Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer and Tim Maner. Book is by Tim Maner. Musical Direction, Orchestrations and arrangements are by Alan Stevens Hewitt. This production includes Set Design by Caleb Levengood, Costume Design by Bobby Frederick Tilley II and Lighting Design by Christian DeAngelis.
Following a foray from East Village post-punk neo-folk bands to downtown theater, Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer wrote and performed music in many original experimental productions through the late 80s and early 90s, mostly with directors Kristin Marting and Tim Maner, including musical adaptations of Frankenstein, The Scarlet Letter and an early incarnation of LIZZIE BORDEN. In 1992, he and Jay Byrd started an act called Y'all, performing original songs and stories based on Grand Ole Opry-style country entertainment. The act sprang from the downtown theater scene and went on to play in coffeehouses, churches, retirement homes, community centers and schools across the U.S. and in Europe. Steven made a documentary film about his longtime relationship with Jay Byrd and the final years of Y'all called Life in a Box which premiered in the San Francisco International Film Festival in 2005 and was screened and well received at several other festivals across the U.S. and Canada.
Tim Maner was a founder and artistic director of the critically acclaimed Tiny Mythic Theatre Company, Inc. and a co-founder and co-director of the award-winning HERE. With them, his theatrical producing/presenting history spanned over a decade and hundreds of productions including: Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique (Drama Desk Nom., OBIE Award), Music Theater Group's Running Man (Pulitzer Prize Nomination), Target Margin's Mamba's Daughters (OBIE Award), and Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues (OBIE Award, Drama Desk Nom.). He has written, directed, musical directed and produced over 20 original theatrical works including: The Hawthorne Project, a six-year collaboration with writer/adaptor Elizabeth Banks building a trilogy of multi-layered multi-media events adapted from Nathaniel Hawthorne's three American novels that brought together over 100 artists (performers, musicians, composers, writers, dancers, poets, designers, poets and philosophers) and The Opera Project, a five-year collaboration with composer Matthew Pierce and writer Ruth Margraff creating a series of original New Wave Operas.
