Producer Jerry Frankel previously expressed a wish to open the show on Broadway in fall 2011. The reading features Laura Osnes (2011 Drama Desk nominee for Anything Goes) as Bonnie Parker and Jeremy Jordan (West Side Story) as Clyde Barrow. Osnes originated the role of Depression-era outlaw Bonnie Parker (opposite Stark Sands) when it first began at the La Jolla Playhouse in the fall of 2009, where she earned a San Diego Theater Critics Circle Award for her performance and the show won Best Musical. She then reprised that role opposite Jeremy Jordan in fall 2010 at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, FL.
As previously reported, composer Wildhorn (Wonderland, The Civil War, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Jekyll & Hyde) flirts with rockabilly, blues and gospel to tell the tale of a waitress and a troubled Texas teen whose notorious exploits captured the country's imagination.
The Manhattan reading cast also includes Claybourne Elder (as Buck Barrow), Melissa Van Der Schyff (as Blanche Barrow), Wayne Duvall (as Sheriff Schmid), Chris Peluso (as Ted Hinton), Kelsey Fowler (as Young Bonnie) and Ted Sutherland (as Young Clyde), with Leslie Becker, Mimi Bessette, Casey Shea, Natalie Hill, Alison Cimmet, Victor Hernandez, Michael Lanning, Dan Cooney, Michael Mulligan, Tad Wilson and Marty Thomas.
The creative team includes composer Frank Wildhorn, lyricist Don Black, librettist Ivan Menchell and director Jeffrey Calhoun. This production of Bonnie and Clyde is being presented by Kathleen Raitt, Barry Satchwell Smith, Jerry Frankel, Jeffrey Richards, Michael Jenkins and Bob Bartner.