Rehearsals will lead to a Feb. 10 presentation to invited guests. Jeff Calhoun (Big River, Brooklyn) directs, John McDaniel (Annie Get Your Gun) is musical director, and the title characters — the famous American criminals of the Depression era, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow — are played by Laura Osnes (Kathleen Marshall's Grease) and Stark Sands (a Tony Award nominee for Journey's End).
The libretto is by Ivan Menchell, who wrote the play The Cemetery Club and is credited with "additional material" for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
The Bonnie and Clyde reading cast also includes Rob Evan, Kelsey Fowler, Natalie Hill, Michael Lanning, David Larsen, Jacob Levine, Brynn O'Malley, Geoff Packard, Tricia Paoluccio, Jessica Phillips, Nancy Ringham, Bart Shatto, Marty Thomas, Ben Thompson, Tad Wilson and Betsy Wolfe.
Wildhorn's work on Broadway includes the musicals Jekyll & Hyde, Victor/Victoria, The Civil War, Dracula and The Scarlet Pimpernel. He was nominated for a Best Score Tony Award for The Civil War.
Tony Award winner (and four-time nominee) Black wrote lyrics to Wildhorn's music in Dracula (also book). He contributed lyrics and book to Sunset Boulevard (Tony, Best Score), and lyrics to Aspects of Love and Song and Dance (all with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber). His lyrics were also heard in Dance of the Vampires, Bombay Dreams and Merlin. Calhoun was nominated for a 1994 Tony Award for Best Choreography for Grease, and was nominated for a 2004 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical for Big River, produced on Broadway by Roundabout and Deaf West Theatre. He also choreographed Big River. His Broadway credits also include directing Brooklyn and Grease and choreographing Bells Are Ringing and Annie Get Your Gun.
Roundabout hosts or produces a number of readings every year, and such explorations don't necessarily indicate a future Roundabout life for the titles.
This Bonnie and Clyde is not to be confused by another musical of the same name, using the same characters, by librettist Hunter Foster and composer-lyricist Rick Crom. That property was seen in 2008 at the New York Musical Theatre Festival.
