Birdsong Is Live! Nude! Girl! in NYMF Reading; Benson, Testa, Dean, Marcus Also Sing

By Kenneth Jones
05 Oct 2009

Mary Birdsong
Mary Birdsong

The new musical Live! Nude! Girl!, about a 1950s housewife who goes from drab to fab, gets two reading presentations in the New York Musical Theatre Festival on Oct. 15. Broadway's Mary Birdsong is the title character.

The show by composer Wayne Barker and lyricist-librettist Donna Kaz had a Manhattan reading in January 2008; the NYMF exposure features a revised script and score.

Michael O'Donnell directs the latest draft. Musical direction is by Marco Paguia. Casting includes Laura Lee Anderson, Peter Benson, Rheaume Crenshaw, Bradley Dean, Kevin Free, Kyle Harris, Daniel Marcus, Erin Markey, Marissa O'Donnell, Ariel Reid, Joe Paperella, Mary Testa and Hannah Wolfe. Kathryn L. McKee is the stage manager.

Birdsong, of TV's "Reno 911," is among cast members of Love, Loss and What I Wore Off-Broadway, and appeared in Broadway's Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me.

Live! Nude! Girl! is an official selection of the New York Musical Theatre Festival's developmental reading series. The readings are at the 45th Street Theatre.

The show, which tells of an Eisenhower-era housewife named Kit who flees to Las Vegas, had a presentation in the York Theatre Company's Developmental Reading Series in June 2006 and a reading in January of 2008 produced by Small Pond Entertainment.

According to the creators, "What if a 1950s Midwestern housewife got so sick of making meatloaf every Tuesday night that she snapped — and ran away to Las Vegas? What if her mother could drink like Dean and her daughter entertain like Sammy? And what if this housewife went from the silent and submissive bottom to the tough, impulsive and calculated top of the heap? Live! Nude! Girl! is an original musical that tells the story of a once in a lifetime chance for one woman to break out of her rut into something original and cool."

Composer Barker previously worked with Dame Edna Everage as her onstage pianist and also co-wrote songs with Barry Humphries for Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance!

Kaz is an alumna of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. Her short musical No Trouble at All (with composer Gerald Stockstill) was seen in the first New York Musical Theatre Festival. She wrote and directed Joan, a hip update of the Joan of Arc story, at the Northeastern Theatre (TNT) in Scranton, PA, where the show won a Jason Miller Award. The production later played the Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland.

The reading performances are at 1 PM and 4:30 PM at 354 West 45th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues.

Seats are limited for this event and are available at the theatre 15 minutes prior to curtain on a first come, first served basis.

Visit www.nymf.org.