Kevin Kline Award winner Ben Nordstrom and St. Louis veteran actor Steve Isom star in the St. Louis premiere of GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL!, the Off-Broadway hit that the New York Times called "A Smashing Success!" The Temporary Theatre (The Temp), a new company headed by Isom, has chosen as its inaugural offering the exclamation point-littered two-man musical spoof by Scott Brown and Anthony King.
The creative staff of GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! is rife with Kevin Kline Award winners. Director Bobby Miller, musical director Henry Palkes and lighting designer Glenn Dunn have all won in their respective categories. The staff is rounded out with choreographer Ellen Isom, scenic consultant Bryan Schulte, costume consultant Thommy Crain and stage manager Sarah Holt.
Performances of GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! will be given at the Ivory Theatre, 7622 Michigan Ave., St. Louis, March 11 - 28, 2010.
Curtain times are Tuesday at 7 pm, Wednesday-Friday at 8 pm, Saturday matinees at 2 pm, Saturday nights at 8 pm and Sunday matinees at 2pm. Opening night is Thursday, March 11.
Tickets are $20, with a special Tuesday half price discount of $10. For reservations, call (314) 631-8330. Tickets are also available through Metrotix at (314) 534-1111 .
Join Bud and Doug, a pair of aspiring playwrights as they perform a backers' audition for their new project - a big, splashy musical about printing press inventor Johann Gutenberg. With an unending supply of enthusiasm, Bud and Doug sing all the songs and play all the parts in their crass historical epic, with the hope that one of the producers in attendance will give them a Broadway contract. More than dozen original songs are featured, including I Can't Read and Stop The Press.
GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! was the first Off-Broadway transfer for the irreverent Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. After the developmental run at UCBT, the show enjoyed its critically acclaimed world premiere at the Jermyn Street Theatre in London in January 2006. These performances featured authors Scott Brown and Anthony King in the starring roles of "Bud" and "Doug."
In September 2006, the U.S. premiere of GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! was presented as part of the third annual New York Musical Theatre Festival, where it received three NYMF Awards, including Excellence in Musical Theatre Writing (Book) for Brown and King. A limited Off-Broadway engagement followed at the 59E59 Theater in December 2006, followed by a transfer to The Actors' Playhouse in Greenwich Village in January of 2007.
Ben Nordstrom joins the cast of GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! directly from his starring role as Hunter in [title of show] at the Repertory theatre of St. Louis. Other Rep appearances include Kiss Me, Kate, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Taming of the Shrew, and Urinetown (Kevin Kline Award nomination). Ben performs regularly at many theaters in the St. Louis area. He has appeared in Little Shop of Horrors (Kevin Kline Award nomination) and Footloose (Kevin Kline Award winner) for Stages St. Louis, The Ugly One and Mary's Wedding for Echo Theatre, Into the Woods and The Philadelphia Story for the Arrow Rock Lyceum and Say You Love Satan for HotCity Theatre. Ben can be seen and heard in many commercials and voice-overs for McDonalds, the St. Louis Cardinals, and Hewlett-Packard. Ben holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from Webster University's Conservatory and lives in Ballwin with his wife, Kristen and son, Samuel.
Steve Isom, the producer and co-star of GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL!, has been a regular on St. Louis stages since marrying his wife, St. Louis native and choreographer Ellen Isom, and moving to St. Louis 16 year ago. He has been a regular at Stages St. Louis, where he played Kodaly in She Loves Me, Harold Hill in The Music Man, Edward Rutledge in 1776, and Jeff in Brigadoon among many other roles. Steve has also had the pleasure of working in many other St. Louis theaters, including The Rep in Bug, Urinetown and Kiss Me, Kate; Shakespeare Festival St. Louis as the crazy Frenchman Dr. Caius in The Merry Wives of Windsor and as Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing, and in Woyzeck with Upstream Theater. Nearly six years ago, in an attempt to build more theatre opportunities in St. Louis, Steve came up with the idea for a theatre awards program that would build audiences and work opportunities for theatre artists. That idea evolved into the Kevin Kline Awards, for which he served as Executive Director during it's first five years, a time in which the number of shows produced in St. Louis nearly doubled. Last year Steve was honored to be chosen as part of the Leadership St. Louis class of 2008-09. He recently founded the Temporary Theatre. GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! is its first production!
