Long Story Short
By Brendan Milburn & Valerie Vigoda
Directed by Kent Nicholson
Based upon the stage play by David Schulner
Music Director/Band Leader Mark Danisovszky
October 3 - November 1, 2009
Previews - Saturday at 8pm, Sunday at 7pm, Tuesday at 7pm, Wednesday at 7pm and Thursday at 8pm.
Opening Night -Friday, October 9th at 8pm
The Story
Brendan Milburn and Valerie Vigoda—two-thirds of the contemporary musical group GrooveLilly—has musicalized a 50-year love affair between Hope, an Asian American native of Southern California, and Charles, a Jewish man from the East Coast newly arrived in L.A. The result is a timetraveling romance that begins with a blind date and goes all the way to old age in one exotic song-filled evening!
Time is relative in this wonder-world of storytelling; it stops on a dime and, without warning, flies by with a new phrase of delicious music. Case in point: in one song, the lovers decide to get married, have second thoughts, break up, make up, and tie the knot.
A live band will ignite the theatre with seductive songs that range from the electric flush of first love (“It Happens in a Moment”), to a sexy duet (“Live Like This”), to the release of suppressed emotions (“Knock Down/Drag Out”)
Hope and Charles’ love story encompasses two different cultures and two distinct mythologies—in play and at play. They literally pour their hearts into each other through a rush of decades that embraces erotic highs, childbirth, tragedy, hard times, recovery, marital doldrums, separation, reconciliation and a final elegant dance to the tune, “Letting Go.”
Unforgettable nights of joy, inexplicable days of pain and a deeply moving catharsis are all present in the journey of Hope and Charles as their love grows, fades, is tested and re-tested. Long Story Short is an intimate, must-see event if you love theatre, music and love.
*To hear samples of the music for free, go to www.groovelily.com/musicals/ long-story-short