February House Cast to Celebrate Album Release With Joe's Pub Concert

By Adam Hetrick
27 Sep 2012

Kacie Sheik
Kacie Sheik
Photo by Joan Marcus

Cast members from The Public Theater production of February House, including Kacie Sheik, Julian Fleisher and Stanley Bahorek, will reunite at Joe's Pub Oct. 16 to celebrate the cast album release of the Gabriel Kahane musical.

February House was staged by Davis McCallum (Water By the Spoonful, Elliot: A Soldier's Fugue, Sex Lives of Our Parents) at the Public Theater last spring. Andy Boroson was musical director. The cast album will be released Oct. 16 on the StorySound label.

In addition to Sheik, Fleisher and Bahorek, the 7 PM concert will feature Kristen Sieh, Erik Lochtefeld, A. J. Shively, Ken Clark and Stephanie Hayes.

Based on the Sherill Tippins biography "February House: The Story of W.H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof in Wartime America," the musical incorporates elements of classical operetta, jazz, musical comedy and modern folk-pop.

Here's how the creators bill February House: "Bringing together some of the greatest and most colorful minds of a generation, including W.H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, George Davis tries to create his own utopia in a small house in Brooklyn Heights in the 1940s. The artists discover new ideas exploding at every turn as they find love, friendship and their own artistic voices in a time of war."

The complete track listing for the upcoming recording follows:

1. Light Upon the Hill
2. George Comes Through
3. A Room Comes Together
4. Refugee Blues
5. Coney Island
6. Shall We Live Here
7. Wanderlust
8. Discontent / Talk of the Town
9. Refugee Blues II
10. A Little Brain
11. Goodnight to the Boardinghouse
12. Bedbugs
13. Awkward Angel
14. It Is Time for the Destruction of Error
15. You Sit In Your Chair
16. Ride Out the Light
17. Georgia
18. Funeral Blues
19. California
20. Light Upon the Hill (reprise)
21. Goodnight to the Boardinghouse (reprise)

Musicians on the recording include conductor Andy Boroson on piano, glockenspiel; Andy Stack on guitars, banjo; Aaron Irwin on flute, clarinet, bass clarinet; Jay Hassler on flute, clarinet, bass clarinet; Tema Watstein on violin; and Jane Cords O'Hara on violoncello.

For tickets phone (212) 967-7555 or visit Public Theater. The Public Theater is located at 425 Lafayette Street in Manhattan.