The popular non-Equity staging by Bailiwick Repertory Theatre ends its run in the Windy City Nov. 15, but commercial producers are putting together a plan for Broadway and hoping to attract $4 million for the musical comedy, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
David Zak, artistic director of Bailiwick, staged the nine-actor musical by Larry Bortniker (the composer-lyricist and co-librettist) and Sally Deering (co-librettist). The show concerns the life and work Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey and is billed as "perhaps the cleanest show about sex in the history of American musicals."
The Chicago Sun-Times reported Nov. 14 that commercial producers Richard Ericson, Jay Bernzweig and Jerry Felix, are attached to the show. The tiny Bailiwick staging reportedly cost about $60,000 to produce.
Previews began Sept. 5 prior to a Sept. 14 opening. The musical earned applause at the ASCAP Musical Theater Workshop at Disney in Los Angeles and was developed in the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. A July 2002 workshop directed by Zak was presented in Chicago.
Kinsey's story is told in the frame of a lecture given by the doctor about his 1948 study of human sexuality. He continues the lecture and tells about his life, which leads up to him becoming notorious for his report. The Bailiwick cast includes Jamie Axtell as Alfred C. Kinsey, Sarah Laue as Mrs. Kinsey and Joshua Campbell as lab assistant Wally. Ensemble members include Steve Best, Julie Burt, Molly Faithe, Kate Garassino, Dustin Hamilton and Sean Reid.
Common wisdom would have marquee-value names attached to a Broadway run, but no decisions about creative team or casting have been announced.
Musical direction in Chicago is by Alan Bukoweicki, with design by Dennis Remer (lighting), Russ Borski (sets), Jeff Jones (costumes).
Bortniker wrote the new Freud-inspired musical, Dora: Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, and co-wrote Animal of the Year (produced at Off Broadway's Vital Theatre) with Sally Deering.
Former actress Deering was a newspaper columnist and reporter, and has seen her comedy, Chewing Mother's Bones, produced at the Penguin Repertory Theatre in Stony Point, NY.
Tickets are $25. For more information about Bailiwick Rep, visit www.bailiwick.org.
