Hunter Foster's Musical Summer of ‘42 on Tap For Bucks County Playhouse Summer Season

Summer of ‘42, a musical featuring a book and lyrics by Hands on a Hardbody star Hunter Foster, will hit Pennsylvania’s Bucks County Playhouse this summer. Directed by Tony nominee Lonny Price and featuring music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum (Vanities), Summer of ‘42 will play from July 25 through August 11. Casting will be announced shortly.

Based on the novel and 1971 film by Herman Raucher, Summer of ‘42 tells the coming of age story of three teenage boys living on a tiny island off the coast of Maine. Meanwhile, America is in the middle of a full-scale war and men are lining up to join the army. It becomes a summer they will never forget.

Summer of ‘42 received a workshop production in 2000 at Goodspeed-at-Chester theater in Connecticut, starring Tony winner (and three-time Broadway.com Audience Choice Award winner) Idina Menzel and Ryan Driscoll. The production transferred to off-Broadway’s Variety Arts Theatre in New York City in December 2001, starring Driscoll, Broadway.com Audience Choice Award winner Celia Keenan-Bolger and Kate Jennings Grant. In 2007, a cast album of the musical was recorded, starring Driscoll, Keenan-Bolger and Rachel York.

Foster currently stars as cutthroat contestant Benny Perkins in Broadway’s Hands on a Hardbody. Foster wrote a musical adaptation of the film Bonnie and Clyde (although not the version most recently on Broadway), and served as a writer for the NBC series Rosie Live. Foster recently told Broadway.com he’s working on a new musical with composer Georgia Stitt. As an actor, Foster earned a Tony nomination for Little Shop of Horrors, and has also appeared on Broadway in The Producers, Urinetown, Footloose, Million Dollar Quartet, Les Miserables and Grease.

The previously announced Bucks County Playhouse season also includes a world premiere of a new play by Terrence McNally starring Emmy and Tony winner Tyne Daly, Mame starring Andrea McArdle, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife directed by Boyd Gaines, Kander and Ebb’s The World Goes ‘Round, and the Marcia Milgrom Dodge-helmed Really Rosie with a book and lyrics by Maurice Sendak and music by Grammy winner Carole King.