Gutenberg! The Musical! Books Six-Week Off-Broadway Run

The two-man musical spoof Gutenberg! The Musical! will begin a six-week run at 59E59 Theaters on November 21 after its successful premiere at the 2006 New York Musical Theatre Festival. The production, starring Christopher Fitzgerald and Jeremy Shamos and directed by Alex Timbers, will open on December 3 and run through December 31.

In Gutenberg! The Musical!, a pair of aspiring playwrights, Bud Davenport Fitzgerald and Doug Simon Shamos, perform a backers' audition for their new project, a great big musical about printing press inventor Johann Gutenberg. They hope that one of the producers in the audience will give them a Broadway contract, fulfilling their ill-advised dreams. With an unending supply of charm, enthusiasm and idiocy, and accompanied by Larry, their pianist, Bud and Doug sing all the songs and play all the parts in their crass historical epic, using only baseball caps to differentiate between the show's 30 characters.

Gutenberg! The Musical! was first developed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in 2003 starring the authors. An excerpt was showcased at the 2005 New York Musical Theatre Festival as part of the NYMF Comedy Series. Gutenberg! The Musical! had its world premiere at The Jermyn Street Theatre in London in January 2006. Fitzgerald and Shamos joined the cast for the 2006 NYMF production.

Fitzgerald has appeared on Broadway in the original companies of Wicked and Amour and off-Broadway in Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, Fully Committed, Saturday Night, Wise Guys, Babes In Arms, Corpus Christi and The Cripple of Inishmaan. Regionally he has performed with the Steppenwolf Theater Company, the Huntington Theater and Williamstown Theater Festival. Fitzgerald was most recently seen as the series regular Neil on WB sitcom Twins staring Sara Gilbert and Melanie Griffith.

Shamos has appeared on Broadway in Reckless and The Rivals. Off-Broadway credits include Miss Witherspoon, Engaged, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged, Hamlet, Cymbeline, Race, The Alchemist, Stranger and Corpus Christi. Regionally he has performed at the Williamstown Theater Festival, Chicago's Court Theater, the Huntington Theater, the Hartford Stage, the Long Wharf Theatre and La Jolla Playhouse.