"Harvest" Film, Featuring Victoria Clark and a Score by Duncan Sheik, Will Open in NYC in May

By Andrew Gans
14 Apr 2011

Duncan Sheik
Duncan Sheik
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

The QUAD Cinema and Monterey Media will present the New York theatrical premiere of "Harvest" beginning May 6; the film is currently playing in select cities around the country.

Written and directed by Marc Meyers, "Harvest" is produced by Meyers and Jody Girgenti.

The cast includes Academy Award and Tony nominees Robert Loggia ("Scarface," "Prizzi’s Honor") and Barbara Barrie ("Breaking Away," "Private Benjamin"), Tony winner Victoria Clark (Light in the Piazza, now starring in Broadway’s Sister Act), Arye Gross ("Grey Gardens," "Minority Report"), Peter Friedman ("The Savages," "Breaking Upwards") and Jack T. Carpenter ("I Love You Beth Cooper").

The film boasts an original score by Grammy and Tony winner Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening) and David Poe. The original acoustic album release of "Duncan Sheik & David Poe: Music From the Motion Picture 'Harvest'" will have its worldwide release on iTunes and other digital platforms May 3.

"Set on the Connecticut shore in Madison," press notes state, "where old money and working families have lived together for generations, Meyers weaves the lives of three generations of the Jewish-Italian Monopoli family who gather around their Patriarch Siv (Loggia), as they wait out what might be the last summer of his life. Although he has pancreatic cancer, it’s hard to tell. The robust Siv has built a substantial world and a generous reputation. A decorated WWII veteran and a successful business owner, he’s all-American and determined to die with a burst of life-affirming energy.

"When his grandson, Josh (played by the winning Jack T. Carpenter) comes home to Madison from college, determined not to spend his 'last' college summer at home, his mother, Anna (Victoria Clark) posts the warning: 'Everything your grandfather does this summer will be for the last time.' "Gradually, the continuity of sympathy and responsibility gains ground, touching Josh, as it dawns on him how precious his family is, despite (sometimes because of) their shortcomings.

"There are painful secrets, suspicions, unfulfilled desires and feelings that go unexpressed. Siv’s once vivacious wife, Yetta (in a vivid performance by Barbara Barrie), has slipped into a cantankerous dementia. The sibling rivalry of his Sandwich Generation children heats up, in part over Siv’s will. And when Josh’s own budding romance with Tina falls apart, Josh reaches out to his grandfather for the secret of how he stayed married and in love with the same woman for more than fifty years. Meyers refracts these stories in meaningful fragments with a delicious humor and pathos—think Chekhov meets Scorsese (with a pinch of Eric Rohmer)."

For more information visit http://raisingharvest.com.