MUSICAL THRILLER
THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
SET TO MESMERIZE AUDIENCES
AT NEW YORK MUSICAL THEATRE FESTIVAL

The New York Musical Theatre Festival and Lyric Stage, Steven Jones Founding Producer, presents THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, September 26, 27, 29, 30 and October 1 @ the 37 Arts Theatre, 450 W. 37th Street.

When Ben Harper steals ten thousand dollars from a bank in depression era West Virginia and tells his young son and daughter to never reveal the whereabouts of the cash, he sets in motion one of the most thrilling, frightening, and heartfelt stories ever to fill the pages of a best selling novel. In 1954 Davis Grubb penned THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, a southern gothic tale that spent weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. The film version, named one of the 100 greatest films of the 20th Century, starred Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish.

Stephen Cole (book and lyrics) and Claibe Richardson (music) have transformed this powerful tale into a bold, daring, and beautifully melodic work for the musical stage. Philip William McKinley (The Boy From Oz) directs an all star cast that includes two time Tony nominee Beth Fowler (Sweeney Todd, The Boy From Oz), two time Tony nominee Carolee Carmello (Parade, Lestat), Brain Noonan (The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables), Mary Stout (Beauty and the Beast, Me and My Girl) and Ron Bohmer (The Woman in White, The Scarlet Pimpernel).
Scenic design is by three time Emmy winner Ray Klausen.

Composer Claibe Richardson’s most notable score was for THE GRASS HARP, a musical version of Truman Capote's novella, with book and lyrics by long time collaborator Kenward Elmslie. The 1971 Broadway production starring Barbara Cook and Karen Morrow survived for only one week, but the subsequent original cast recording, a CBS Camera Three TV presentation and two off-Broadway revivals helped insure the show its longstanding cult status. Other Broadway credits include incidental scores for the 1978 Broadway revival of THE ROYAL FAMILY starring Rosemary Harris and Eva Le Gallienne, a revival of THE PHILIDELPHIA STORY starring Blyth Danner and the premier of William Alfred's THE CURSE OF AN ACHING HEART starring Faye Dunaway and directed by Gerald Gutierrez.

Stephen Cole is an internationally produced, published, and recorded writer. His books include a biography of Noel Coward, That Book about That Girl, an official companion to the famous Marlo Thomas TV series and the just published Marni Nixon memoir I Could Have Sung All Night. Stephen's musicals (book & lyrics) The Night of the Hunter, After the Fair (World Premiere @ Lyric Stage), Dodsworth, Saturday Night at Grossingers, Casper, Aspire and others have been produced from New York City to Australia to Qatar. Current projects include The Road to Qatar! and Time after Time. His awards include the prestigious Edward Kleban Award, five Dallas Theatre League Leon Rabin Awards, an Outer Critic's Circle nomination for Best Off Broadway Musical and the Gilman-Gonzalez Falla Commendation for his work in Musical Theatre.

Lyric Stage is Dallas County’s only locally produced professional musical theater company. Steven Jones founded Lyric Stage in 1993 and under his leadership it has become north Texas’ most honored theater, winning 35 Dallas Theatre League Leon Rabin Awards and a special citation from the Dallas Theatre Critics Forum for excellence and innovation. Lyric Stage has produced the world premieres of AFTER THE FAIR (Stephen Cole and Matthew Ward), CATHER COUNTY (Ed Dixon), JOSEPH AND MARY (Randy Courts and Mark St. Germain), RICHARD CORY (Ed Dixon), A CHRISTMAS TO REMEMBER (Jay Dias and Clayton Stang), ROADSIDE (Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt), AS LONG AS I CAN SING (David Friedman) CHILDREN’S LETTERS TO GOD (Stewart Hample, David Evans and Douglas J. Cohen), SUNDOWN (Peter Link, Joe Bravaco and Larry Rosler), THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM (Ed Dixon), CINDERELLA (Jim Luigs and Scott Warrender), DESPERATE MEASURES (David Friedman and Peter Kellogg) and THE LIVING END (Jeff Blumenkrantz, Annie Kessler, Libby Saines, Andy Monroe, Brad Alexander and Helen Chayefsky). Lyric Stage’s 2006-2007 season includes a concert performance of Stephen Sondheim’s SWEENEY TODD at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center on September 12, Vernon Duke, John Latouche and Lynn Root’s CABIN IN THE SKY October 6-21, the world premiere of Joe Sutton and Lewis Flinn’s THE WINNER February 16-March 3, 2007, DALLAS DIVAS! March 9 & 10, 2007 and MASTER CLASS April 13-28, 2007. Lyric Stage is dedicated to the development and preservation of the American musical. For more information visit www.lyricstage.org or call 972-594-1904.

The New York Musical Theatre Festival, now in its third year, is a three-week event in NYC that has premiered over 70 musicals in its first two years, becoming the largest musical theatre event in American history. Hailed as "the Sundance of Musical Theatre," it is now widely regarded among the entertainment industry as the key source for new material and talent discovery. NYMF is a flagship program of the National Music Theater Network, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, is produced in association with Virgin Megastores, Playbill and New World Stages, and proudly supported by Verizon Wireless, amNewYork, Village Voice, WB11, Receptasign, King Displays, WNYC, Reuters Financial, Niaterra, TheaterMania.com, BroadwayWorld.com, Broadway.com, Izze, Manhattan Living, HX, Zero In Media, Panasonic Astrovision, Next, BroadwayBox.com, HotNYCdeals.com and TheMenEvent.com.

THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER plays the 37 Arts Theatre, 450 W. 37th Street as follows: Tuesday, September 26 @ 8:00 PM, Wednesday September 27 @ 1:00 PM, Friday, September, 29 @ 9:00 PM, Saturday, September 30 @ 1:00 PM & 5:00 PM and Sunday, October 1 @ 4:30 PM. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased online at www.nymf.org or by calling (212) 352-3101. For press tickets, please call Billy Zavelson, Bridget Klapinski / The Karpel Group (212) 505-2900

For more information, please visit www.NYMF.org.