ONE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED CHILDREN’S BOOKS MAGICALLY COMES TO LIFE

Written by Michael Borton and Michael Slade

Directed and Choreographed by Devanand Janki

BEGINNING JUNE 25, 2011

AT MMAC (Manhattan Movement and Arts Center)

PERFECT FOR MAMAS, PAPAS,

and YOUNG CUBS OF ALL AGES

www.BerenstainBearsLive.com

New York: After a 35-week national tour, the beloved Berenstain Bears will be coming to life in New York City for a limited summer engagement! The Berenstain Bears LIVE! in Family Matters, the Musical will begin performances on Saturday, June 25, open on July 3 and run through September 4, 2011 at the Manhattan Movement and Arts Center (MMAC), 248 West 60 Street between Amsterdam and West End Avenue. The Berenstain Bears LIVE! in Family Matters, the Musical is presented by Matt Murphy Productions.

Adapted from the classic children’s books by Stan and Jan Berenstain and approved by the authors themselves, The Berenstain Bears LIVE! in Family Matters, the Musical brings everyone’s favorite bear family to musical life. As always, Bear Country is not without its complications: Papa Bear can’t stop eating junk food, Brother Bear’s grades are slipping, and Sister Bear still has a lot to learn about talking to strangers. Thankfully, we can always depend on Mama Bear and her loving patience to help set things right. This entertaining and heart-warming new musical features an original score by Michael Borton and a book by Borton and Michael Slade.

“I am honored to bring the beloved Berenstain Bears to life on the New York stage in this exciting, new musical production. Our award-winning director/choreographer Dev Janki and his creative team have done a marvelous job in adapting these stories and their important life lessons into a thrilling theatrical experience that kids as well as their parents will treasure for many years to come. Officially approved by the authors themselves, our musical will give a new generation of young readers the chance to fall in love with these characters, just as I did when I was a child.” says producer Matt Murphy.

DEVANAND JANKI (Choreographer) directed and choreographed the hit Off-Broadway show Zanna, Don’t! (Winner of the Lortel, Callaway, & GLAAD Media Awards). Other New York credits include: Junie B. Jones (Lortel nominations), Cupid & Psyche, Henry & Mudge (Lortel nomination), and John Patrick Shanley’s Romantic Poetry (MTC). Broadway concerts: Director for Hair with an all-star cast, featuring Jennifer Hudson (Grammy Nomination), Choreographer for Funny Girl featuring 16 Fanny Brices, including Whoopi Goldberg, Bebe Neuwirth, and Jane Krakowski; associate for Dreamgirls and Seth Rudetsky’s Broadway 101 (The Actors’ Fund). Lincoln Center: Amahl and the Night Visitors, Babes in Toyland, Anything Goes in Concert (assoc.). Dev served nine years as an Artistic Associate for Broadway Bares, which benefits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. As a performer, Dev appeared on Broadway in Miss Saigon, Cats, The King & I, Side Show, and tours of A Chorus Line and West Side Story. www.devanandjanki.com

MICHAEL BORTON (Composer/Lyricist, Co-Book Writer). After two years of working on this production with the Berenstain family, Michael is thrilled to see that The Berenstain Bears in Family Matters, the Musical will be entertaining children all across the nation on its upcoming tour. Michael lives in the Philadelphia area and works as a composer, performer, music director, and private instructor. He has written music for American Family Theatre for Youth and the Walnut Street Theatre, including several of their outreach shows and annual A Christmas Carol. As a performer, some of the companies Michael has worked for include Central City Opera, Opera Delaware, Walnut Street Theatre, and the Arden Theatre. He has been a music director at the Walnut Street Theatre, La Salle University, and Theater Horizon.

MICHAEL SLADE (Co-Book Writer) wrote the book for ten family musicals produced by Theatreworks/USA, including Superfudge, Lyle, Lyle Crocodile, and The Three Pigs. He also contributed the book to Pokemon Live! which premiered at Radio City Music Hall before touring nationally and internationally. His first children’s novel, The Horses of Central Park (Scholastic Hardcover/Apple Paperback) was awarded the 1992 ISAR Award for Children’s Literature. And a Child Shall Lead. Bye, Bye Big Guy opened at the Lucille Lortel Theatre as part of the 2007 NYC International Fringe Festival. His new musical Wheatley’s Folly (music by Joseph Thalken, lyrics by Mark Campbell) will premier at The Signature Theatre in Washington, DC spring, 2011 under the direction of Eric Schaeffer. NYC’s Roundabout Theatre recently produced a reading of his play, Under a Red Moon, starring Kate Burton and Billy Crudup. A reading of his romantic comedy, Garden Politics starred Kathleen Turner, Holland Taylor, and Bob Dishy. Mr. Slade was nominated for an Emmy as a writer of One Life to Live and a Writers’ Guild Award for Another World. He has also written for Passions and Days of our Lives.

MATT MURPHY (Producer) is currently on the producing team of the new Broadway musical Memphis at the Shubert Theatre, and he is the producer of an original musical for today’s texting, blogging, Facebooking generation called Virtually Me!, which was recently profiled on Fox News and My9 News for its efforts to educate students about the increasingly challenging issue of cyber-bullying. He was a producer of the Tony-nominated Broadway production of Thurgood starring Laurence Fishburne, and Michael Jacobs’ Impressionism starring Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons, and he made his New York producing debut with the hit musical Altar Boyz. Murphy recently acquired the stage rights to Michael Blake’s 1986 best-selling novel Dances with Wolves, which he intends to adapt into a dramatic musical for the Broadway stage. www.mattmurphyproductions.com