New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ CineMedia Promotions) Broadway Records announced today the upcoming release of LIZZIE, a rock concept double album digitally on June 14, 2013 and on CD June 18, 2013. It is available for pre-order at https://amzn.com/B00CIIFKAM.
A double-disc set packed with murder, incest, love, betrayal, sexual manipulation, evidence tampering, bribery, and balls-to-the-wall rock and roll, LIZZIE is a female-fronted rock concept album which tells the bloody legend of America's first and favorite axe-wielding double-murderess and Victorian hometown girl,
Lizzie Borden. The creators of LIZZIE -- Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer, Tim Maner and Alan
Stevens Hewitt -- re-imagine her story as a transformation from downtrodden spinster to rock and roll legend, in the process creating a genuine American myth.
Taking a cue from iconic concept albums like Jesus Christ
Superstar and Tommy, the creative team has conceived LIZZIE as a stand-alone rock album that will be expanded into live concerts and theatrical events across the country. Though developmental productions of LIZZIE (formerly known as
Lizzie Borden) have been presented to sold-out audiences and critical acclaim in New York, Seattle, and elsewhere, this studio album is the debut of a newly revised and orchestrated version never heard before.
LIZZIE features Carrie Manolakos and
Storm Large as the infamous Borden sisters. Manolakos (Lizzie) is perhaps best known for her viral YouTube cover of Radiohead's "Creep," taped live at La Poisson
Rouge in New York, which has been viewed over 1 million times and was featured on The Daily Beast, the New Yorker, Huffington Post, and dubbed an "Eargasm" by Gawker.
Portland's
Storm Large, dubbed a "punk goddess" by Playboy, sings the role of Emma Borden. Large attracted national attention as a finalist on the CBS reality show "Rock Star: Supernova." She tours with
Pink Martini and with her own band, the
Storm Large Band.
Carrie Cimma brings a Sid Vicious snarl to her
Drama Desk-nominated performance as Bridget, the maid, and bombshell Seattleite Ryah Nixon (9 to 5: The Musical 1st Natl. Tour/Doralee Rhodes) rounds out the group as Alice Russell, Lizzie's neighbor and love interest.
Band members include; Matt Webb/Piano & Keys (Resident
Music Director for Great Lakes Theater/Idaho Shakespeare Festival), Alec Berlin/Guitar 1 (Green Day's American Idiot on Broadway), Ryan Mackstaller/Guitar 2 (Little Worlds, Easy Tells), Ward Williams/Cello (Jump,
Little Children, Tam Lin, Brandi Carlile), Jeremy Chatzky/Bass (Ronnie Spector, Bruce Springsteen) and Matt Zebroski/Drums & Percussion (Alex Skolnick Trio).
Alan
Stevens Hewitt, who produces and also plays on the album, grew up playing classical music but spent his teens and twenties recording and touring with rock bands before pursuing conservatory training in composition. Maner and Cheslik-DeMeyer come from the downtown New York theater scene, where they collaborated on several music/theatre hybrids which combined rock, folk, and indie pop with American stories. The wide-ranging combined experience of the three gives LIZZIE a sound that owes less to
Andrew Lloyd Webber and
Stephen Sondheim than it does to Heart, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles,
Grace Slick,
Radiohead and the Runaways.
The album was engineered by Anthony "Rocky" Gallo (John Legend, Norah Jones, Cat Power, Mos Def, Carly Simon, Jon Bon Jovi, among many others) and mastered by Dave McNair who recently mastered
David Bowie's The Next Day.
LIZZIE is Executive Produced by The Broadway Consortium (Van Dean and Kenny Howard) and Brunish Trinchero LLC (Brisa Trinchero and Corey Brunish).
LIZZIE:
Music by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer and Alan
Stevens Hewitt; Lyrics by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer and Tim Maner; Book by Tim Maner; Additional
Music by Tim Maner; Additional Lyrics by Alan
Stevens Hewitt; Based on an Original Concept by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer and Tim Maner; Orchestrations by Alan
Stevens Hewitt.
Web: https://www.lizziethemusical.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lizziemusical
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LizzieMusical, @LizzieMusical
Steven Cheslik-deMeyer
Steven has been telling stories for three decades in New York, Nashville, Austin, and on the road, as a composer, writer, and performer, including dozens of shows in the New York indie theater and music scenes of the 1980s and 90s, ten years with the neo-vaudeville duo Y'all, CDs, books, and a feature film, Life in a Box. Last fall, Steven received a MacDowell fellowship to begin work on a new solo music theater piece. Steven lives in New York City with his husband, and he blogs at Bilerico.com and golikewater.blogspot.com.
Tim Maner
Immediately after graduating as a director from NYU/Tisch/Playwrights Horizons, Tim founded the tiny mythic theatre company where LIZZIE began. A few years later, tiny mythic became the award-winning arts center, HERE, and his producing/presenting history there spanned a decade and hundreds of productions. Tim has created over twenty original works as a writer and director, sung in some bands, arranged and conducted a Cowgirl Chorus, and originated roles in a couple of Robert Wilson shows. His directing work has been called "as surreal as
David Lynch" (TimeOut/NY), "like a Quentin Tarrantino fever-dream" (The Village Voice) and "focused ... masterful" (ShowBusiness).
Alan
Stevens Hewitt
ASH grew up onstage and in the studio. He has played on Broadway (Spring Awakening, American Idiot), on tour in the U.S. and abroad, in opera houses before thousands, and in the worst dives for fewer people than were onstage. He cut his recording teeth as a teenager working with Philadelphia-based Ruffhouse Records at Studio 4 and in the 90's as a member of The Low Road (Caroline Records). He has played with Pete Townsend, opened for Nirvana, toured with label-mates
Ben Folds Five, and has busked for gas-money. His first score for the theatre was for a production of Brecht's Baal that the NYTimes thought was awful. He lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
