Lorna Luft, Eric Anderson, Stephen Bogardus, Patti Murin, Philip Hoffman Cast in Room 16 Staged Reading

By Michael Gioia
21 Feb 2012

Patti Murin
Patti Murin

Room 16, a new musical featuring music by Stephen Sislen, lyrics by Sislen and Ben H. Winters and a book by Andrea Lepcio, will be presented in a staged reading March 8 at 2 PM at Chelsea Studios.

Directed by Kim Weild, the cast includes Eric Anderson (South Pacific) as G. Gordon Liddy, Stephen Bogardus (James Joyce's The Dead) as E. Howard Hunt, Philip Hoffman (Into the Woods) as John Mitchell, Lorna Luft (White Christmas) as Dorothy Hunt and Patti Murin (Lysistrata Jones) as Sally Harmony.

Room 16, according to press notes, "is a wry, dark, comedic look inside the unlikely friendship between G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt and the events surrounding the Watergate break-in in 1972. With a score spanning American popular musical styles from swing and big band to folk and early '70s rock, Room 16 is a fast-paced and darkly comedic look inside American political history."

Other members of the creative team include music director Vadim Feichtner and production stage manager Katrina Lynn Olson.

Room 16 was part of the Goodspeed Festival of New Artists and Broadway Close Up: Bound for Broadway XI, hosted by Liz Callaway in 2011. The musical has also benefited from ASCAP/ Disney Musical Theatre Workshop, BMI Master Class with Hal Prince, Musical Mondays Theatre Lab in 2008 and was developed at the Dramatists Guild Fellowship in 2008-09.

Chelsea Studios is located at 151 W. 26th Street. For more information and to make a reservation, email Room16res@gmail.com.