The Shows: THEATER
These plays (except for "Painting It Red", which is published by Samuel French) are not yet available for production. For more information on these and other stage plays, please contact New Music Arts: 612.353.6592, or email performances@newmusicarts.org
Hard Times
WORK-IN-PROGRESS: Book and Lyrics by Dan Pinkerton, Music by Gary Rue HARD TIMES is based on the novel by Charles Dickens. Set in the fictional mining and mill town of Coketown, England, in 1850, it powerfully dramatizes the multiple ways in which those whose have power abuse those who do not: owners over workers, men over women, parents over children, and teachers over pupils. It is also a devastating critique of the then-new spirit of Utilitarianism, which held that only knowledge which is of commercial or scientific use is worth having. In HARD TIMES, Dickens makes an eloquent claim that cruelty, intolerance, and abuse of power all stem from the deliberate stifling of the imagination and the heart --- what he called “murdering the children.”
Composing Ellen
WORK-IN-PROGRESS: Book and Lyric by Ann Schulman, Music by Gary Rue This work-in-progress was a Jerome and Minnesota State Arts Board finalist and a PlayLabs semifinalist.
The Semi-Fabulous Neverby Brothers
Dave and Paul Neverby, former country music stars of the early 1950's, duke it out at their reunion. Book and Lyrics by Robert Sheely
Painting It Red
Book by Steven Dietz Lyrics by Leslie Ball Music by Gary Rue