Producers: Bluegrass Opera, Balagula Theatre
Director: Rachel Lee Rogers
Conductor: Lorne Dechtenberg
Dates: 13-15, 19-22 November 2015
Event page

Two theater companies in Lexington, Kentucky share the honor of producing the first revival of LoveMusik, which premiered on Broadway in May 2007. The show features 25 songs by Kurt Weill drawn from his German, French, and American stage works, as well as a few composed independently. Book writer Alfred Uhry has prepared a revised script, which will be performed for the first time in Lexington. On Saturday, 14 November, Uhry himself will be on hand to meet spectators.

LoveMusik was the brainchild of director Harold Prince, who came up with the idea of creating a musical based on Speak Low (When You Speak Love), the correspondence of Weill and his wife Lotte Lenya. Prince brought Uhry in to write the book and help select the songs, which were then orchestrated by Broadway legend Jonathan Tunick for a ten-player ensemble. The original Broadway cast was headlined by Michael Cerveris as Weill and Donna Murphy as Lenya, both of whom were nominated for Tony Awards, and the show enjoyed a two-month run. Clive Barnes hailed it in the New York Post: “No one in the 20th century wrote music that purred and snarled like Kurt Weill. There was no composer quite like him. Never will be . . . That music, and Weill’s love for his muse, Lotte Lenya, is what Alfred Uhry’s new musical LoveMusik is all about.” The original cast recording is available.

The show is licensed for performance by Rodgers & Hammerstein. We look forward to many more productions on stages great and small.

Features

Interviews with Prince and Uhry

Bluegrass Opera’s Facebook page

Performance listing in American Theatre