CLOSER THAN EVER

September 18 – 21 at 8:00 p.m.

Sept. 22 at 2:00 p.m.

Shaw Performing Arts centre (at The Forks)

Founded by Donna Fletcher and Reid Harrison in 2000, Dry Cold has produced some of the finest contemporary musicals seen in Winnipeg.  Recent productions have included the western Canadian premiere of The Light in the Piazza, a spectacular production of Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street and, most recently, Follies, the sold-out hit of SondheimFest 2013.  The 2013-2014 theatre season marks Dry Cold Productions’ 13th year of producing contemporary musical theatre in Winnipeg.  Some of the highlights include:

• 12 artistically acclaimed productions including the Winnipeg premieres of Sweeney Todd, Assassins, Urinetown, The Light in the Piazza and Follies.
• Providing unique opportunity and employment for over 150 Winnipeg theatre artists.

• Assisting in the development of the careers of young artists such as Alexandra Frohlinger (The Secret Garden), Samantha Hill (Nine & The Light in the Piazza) and Jaz Sealey (She Loves Me) all of whom have debuted on Broadway in the last year. 
• Dry Cold shows have been attended by over 9000 Winnipeg theatre-lovers.

After the huge success of Little Women and the sold-out run of Follies as part of SondheimFest 2013, Dry Cold moves to a new and very exciting phase in its development as a company, its first independent two-show season.  Maltby and Shire’s classic revue Closer Than Ever and the Ahrens & Flaherty triumph A Man of No Importance will be the pieces around which its season will be built. 

Closer Than Ever began its life at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts before moving to New York, opening on 6 November 1989 at the off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theatre, where it ran for 312 performances. The revue won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical and Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire both garnered Drama Desk Award nominations as lyricist and composer respectively.  Closer Than Ever is an intimate, insightful tale about love, security, happiness - and holding onto them in a world that pulls you in a hundred directions at once. Maltby and Shire bring their celebrated craft and contemporary sensibility to songs about aging, mid-life crisis, second marriages, and role reversals with parents, as well as wicked satirical jabs at working couples and unrequited love. 

Richard Maltby, Jr. has conceived and directed the only two musical revues to ever win the Tony Award for Best Musical: Isn’t Misbehavin' and Fosse. David Shire is an Academy Award and Grammy-winning American songwriter and composer of stage musicals, film and television scores.  Maltby was director/co-lyricist for the American version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Song and Dance and was co-lyricist for Miss Saigon.  Maltby and David Shire started working together as students at Yale University and their first Broadway credit was in 1968. In 1977 the Manhattan Theatre Club produced a review of their earlier songs, written for other works, finally titled Starting Here, Starting Now. With composer Shire, Maltby was the director and lyricist for Baby, and the lyricist for Big.

Closer Than Ever brings together four of Winnipeg’s most accomplished musical theatre performers:

• Peter Huck - Sweeney Todd in Dry Cold’s 2011 production of Sondheim’s masterpiece
• Aaron Hutton - Toby in the Dry Cold’s Sweeney Todd and Fabrizio in The Light in the Piazza
• Jennifer Lyon - the star of MTC’s production of Next to Normal
• Debbie Maslowsky - most recently seen in Dry Cold’s Follies (SondheimFest 2013)

The creative team is led by Director Kimberley Rampersad and Music Director Paul De Gurse and features the work of Set Designer Kari Hagness, Lighting Designer Bill Williams, Costumer Jan Malabar and Harlequin Costumes and Stage Manager Evan Klassen.

Tickets are priced at $35 for adults and $25 for students are available by phone at (204) 942-8898, on line at www.tickets.mytp.ca and in person at the Shaw Performing Arts Centre box office at the Forks..

More information about Dry Cold Productions can be found on its website: www.drycoldproductions.ca.