Ohio Festival of New Musicals Workshops Bob Merrill Revue, Pump Up the Volume and Play It Cool | Playbill

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News Ohio Festival of New Musicals Workshops Bob Merrill Revue, Pump Up the Volume and Play It Cool Love Makes the World Go Round, a new musical revue based on the work of Broadway composer-lyricist Bob Merrill, as well as a stage adaptation of the film "Pump Up the Volume" and the jazz-inflected work Play It Cool are presented beginning Aug. 5 as part of the 2011 Festival of New Musicals.

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Kyle Jarrow Photo by Esty Stein

Running Aug. 5-7, the Dayton-based Human Race Theatre Company has partnered with a local community theatre, the Encore Theatre Company, to help workshop new musicals this summer.

Encore Theatre Company is producing a staged reading of Pump Up the Volume, based on the 1990 film of the same title about a lonely teen who broadcasts a pirate FM radio station from his parents home. The rock musical has music by Jeff Thomson, with book and lyrics by Jeremy Desmon.

The Consequences, the new Kyle Jarrow-Nathan Leigh musical about once lovers who reunite ten years later and wonder "What if?," is also receiving a full staging by ETC as part of the festival. 

The Human Race is guiding a workshop of Love Makes The World Go 'Round: The Songs of Bob Merrill, which has a book by Duane Poole (A Christmas Memory) and musical arrangements by "Glee" arranger and pianist Brad Ellis.

Set within a piano bar, three women explore songs from Funny Girl; Carnival; Henry, Sweet Henry; and Take Me Along, as well as the popular songs "Mambo Italiano," "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window," "Honeycomb" and "If I Knew You We're Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake." Also being workshopped is Play It Cool, which was seen during the 2008 New York Musical Theatre Festival and the 2010 National Alliance for Musical Theatre's Festival of New Musicals. Conceived by Larry Dean Harris, Play It Cool has lyrics by Mark Winkler, music by Phillip Swann and a book by Martin Casella and Harris.

According to the Human Race, "Play It Cool transports you back to the days of film noir and smoky hot jazz in a secret 1953 Hollywood club called Mary's Hideaway – where men couldn't dance with men and women were expected to know their place in society. It's a show about five individuals: their passions, ambitions and their courage to break the rules no matter what the price."

For tickets visit HumanRace.

 
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