The Pursuit of Persephone is a musical with music and lyrics by Peter Mills and book by Cara Reichel. [1] The show details F. Scott Fitzgerald's time at Princeton University, and his love for Ginevra King. [2] Elements of the plot are loosely adapted from This Side of Paradise (Fitzgerald's own fictionalized account of his time at Princeton).
The show premiered at the Connelly Theatre in New York City in 2005, featuring Chris Fuller as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jessica Grové as Ginevra King. [2] [3]
In 2006 much of the original cast returned for a concert reading of the show at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. [4] That same year, a production of the show was staged at the University of Michigan, starring Justin Paul as F. Scott Fitzgerald. [5]
In 2014 the show was reworked and presented by the Prospect Theater Company under the name "The Underclassman". [6] [7]
| 2005 Off-Broadway [8] | 2006 Concert Reading [4] | 2014 Prospect Theater [7] | |
|---|---|---|---|
| F. Scott Fitzgerald | Chris Fuller | Matt Dengler | |
| Ginevra King | Jessica Grové | ||
| Marie Hersey | Piper Goodeve | ||
| Edmund Wilson | David Abeles | ||
| John Peale Bishop | Benjamin Sands | Marrick Smith | |
| Trip Everett | Jordan Bondurant | ||
| "Ham" Samuels | Jeremy Morse | ||
| Clive Bagby | Jason Edward Cook | ||
The show received some praise for its music, costuming, and casting, but often received criticism for its book. [9] [8]
The 2014 production similarly was praised for its music, while critics felt the underlying story was not interesting enough to captivate audiences. [6] [7]
| Award | Category | |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 Drama Desk Awards [10] | Best Music | Nominated |
| Best Orchestrations | Nominated |
This Side of Paradise is the debut novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1920. It examines the lives and morality of carefree American youth at the dawn of the Jazz Age. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive middle-class student at Princeton University who dabbles in literature and engages in a series of romances with flappers. The novel explores the theme of love warped by greed and status-seeking, and takes its title from a line of Rupert Brooke's poem Tiare Tahiti.
Jason Robert Brown is an American musical theatre composer, lyricist, and playwright. Brown's music sensibility fuses pop-rock stylings with theatrical lyrics. He is the recipient of three Tony Awards for his work on Parade and The Bridges of Madison County.
Shoshana E. Bean is a Tony-nominated American singer, songwriter, and stage actress. She has appeared in numerous musicals, performing in major Off-Broadway and Broadway theatres, including in the original production of Hairspray.
Lucille Lortel was an American actress, artistic director, and theatrical producer. In the course of her career Lortel produced or co-produced nearly 500 plays, five of which were nominated for Tony Awards: As Is by William M. Hoffman, Angels Fall by Lanford Wilson, Blood Knot by Athol Fugard, Mbongeni Ngema's Sarafina!, and A Walk in the Woods by Lee Blessing. She also produced Marc Blitzstein's adaptation of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera, a production which ran for seven years and according to The New York Times "caused such a sensation that it...put Off-Broadway on the map."
Kait Kerrigan is an American playwright and musical theater lyricist and book writer.
Francis Jue is an American actor and singer. Jue is known for his performances on Broadway, in national tours, Off-Broadway and in regional theatre, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area and at The Muny in St. Louis. His roles in plays and musicals range from Shakespeare to Rodgers and Hammerstein to David Henry Hwang. He is also known for his recurring role on the TV series Madam Secretary (2014–2019).
The Lucille Lortel Theatre is an off-Broadway playhouse at 121 Christopher Street in Manhattan's West Village. It was built in 1926 as a 590-seat movie theater called the New Hudson, later known as Hudson Playhouse. The interior is largely unchanged to this day.
The Lucille Lortel Awards recognize excellence in New York Off-Broadway theatre. The Awards are named for Lucille Lortel, an actress and theater producer, and have been awarded since 1986. They are produced by the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers by special arrangement with the Lucille Lortel Foundation, with additional support from the Theatre Development Fund.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. Although he achieved temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald received critical acclaim only after his death and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Francis Cugat, also known as Francisco Coradal-Cougat, was a painter and graphic designer whose most famous work was Celestial Eyes, the original 1925 dust jacket for The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. From the mid-1940s he was a Technicolor consultant on more than 60 Hollywood films.
Ginevra King Pirie was an American socialite and heiress. As one of the self-proclaimed "Big Four" debutantes of Chicago during World War I, King inspired many characters in the novels and short stories of Jazz Age writer F. Scott Fitzgerald; in particular, the character of Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. A 16-year-old King met an 18-year-old Fitzgerald at a sledding party in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and they shared a passionate romance from 1915 to 1917.
Alex Timbers is an American writer and director best known for his work on stage and television. He has received numerous accolades including two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Drama Desk Award, as well as nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Grammy Award. Timbers received the Drama League Founder's Award for Excellence in Directing and the Jerome Robbins Award for Directing.
Peter Friedman is an American stage, film, and television actor. He made his Broadway debut in the Eugene O'Neill play The Great God Brown in 1972. His other Broadway credits include roles in The Rules of the Game (1974), Piaf (1981), The Heidi Chronicles (1989), and Twelve Angry Men (2004). He earned a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical nomination for his role as Tateh in Ragtime (1998).
Katherine Baldwin is an American singer and actress known for her work in musical theater. She received a Tony Award nomination for her work in the 2009 Broadway revival of Finian's Rainbow. She also co-starred opposite Bette Midler, David Hyde Pierce, and Gavin Creel in the Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly!, for which she received Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle award nominations for her work as the saucy millineress Irene Molloy. Baldwin continued with the production until it closed in August 2018.
David Cromer is an American theatre director, and stage, film, and TV actor. He has received recognition for his work on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in his native Chicago. Cromer has won or been nominated for numerous awards, including winning the Lucille Lortel Award and Obie Award for his direction of Our Town. He was nominated for the Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for his direction of The Adding Machine. In 2018, Cromer won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for The Band's Visit.
Christopher Ashley is an American stage director. Since 2007, he has been the artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse.
Martyna Majok is a Polish-born American playwright who received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Cost of Living. She emigrated to the United States as a child and grew up in New Jersey. Majok studied playwriting at the Yale School of Drama and Juilliard School. Her plays are often politically engaged, feature dark humor, and experiment with structure and time.
Peter Mills is an American musical theatre composer and lyricist. He won the third Fred Ebb award in 2007.
Titanique is a jukebox musical featuring music of Céline Dion, with a book by Tye Blue, Marla Mindelle, and Constantine Rousouli. The musical is a parody of the 1997 film Titanic, and the story is a retelling of the movie's events from the perspective of Dion.
Gatz is a stage adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby by Elevator Repair Service theater ensemble. The show was directed by John Collins.
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