After a successful six-week run at 59E59 Theaters, Gutenberg! The Musical! will transfer to the Actors' Playhouse for a 10-week limited engagement. The two-man musical comedy spoof, written by Scott Brown and Anthony King and directed by Alex Timbers, will begin performances at its new off-Broadway venue on January 16, with opening night set for January 21. Christopher Fitzgerald and Jeremy Shamos will continue as its stars.
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 big, splashy musical about printing press inventor Johann Gutenberg. With an unending supply of enthusiasm, Bud and Doug sing all the songs and play all the parts in their crass historical epic, with the hope that one of the producers in attendance will give them a Broadway contract—fulfilling their ill-advised dreams.
The show marks the first off-Broadway transfer for the acclaimed Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, where it was originally developed in 2003. UCBT showcased an excerpt of the musical 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. All of those presentations and productions were devised and performed by Brown and King. The U.S. premiere, starring Fitzgerald and Shamos, was presented in September 2006 as part of the third annual New York Musical Theatre Festival, where it received awards for its book and for Fitzgerald and Shamos' performances.
Gutenberg! The Musical! is presented off-Broadway by Trevor Brown, Ron Kastner, Terry Allen Kramer and Joseph Smith in association with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.
