The New York Musical Theatre Festival presents the New York Premiere of THE BIG BANK

New York: This year’s New York Musical Theatre Festival will host the New York premiere of The Big Bank, a timely musical about a bank that loves to foreclose, written by Daniel and Jacob Seligmann, directed by David Glenn Armstrong. The Big Bank will begin performances on September 27th and will run through October 4, 2011 at The Theater at St. Clements (423 W 46 Street). Tickets are $25 and available at nymf.org or by calling 866-811-4111.

The Big Bank of Brooklyn has an insatiable appetite for foreclosure. This is the bank that revels in taking away people’s homes and dreams. Stuart Stevens, a long time employee, has lost his passion for repossession and finds himself falling in love with Iris, the owner of a flower shop he’s been ordered to foreclose on. Meanwhile, a radical environmentalist and his precocious 11-year old daughter, Parsley, plot their revenge on The Big Bank. Will the bank go bust? Or BOOM!? A wacky wonderful musical for our time.

The cast includes: Klea Blackhurst (Stage: Ethel Merman, Everything The Traffic Will Allow, Bingo, By Jupiter.TV: “Sesame Street,” “Law and Order: SVU”), Piper Goodeve (Anne of Green Gables, The Pursuit of Persephone. Showtime’s “Bereft”), Stacey Todd Holt (Broadway: Elf, Cry Baby, The Producers), Carly Rose Sonenclar (Broadway: Wonderland, Les Mis. Film: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, The Nanny Diaries. TV: “The Electric Company”), Con O’Shea-Creal (Irving Berlin’s White Christmas), James Patterson (Broadway/Tours: Drowsy Chaperone, Beauty and the Beast, State Fair, Cats.), Alex Puette (National Tour: Young Frankenstein, Legally Blonde).

DAVID GLENN ARMSTRONG (Director) has staged over 150 productions/workshops/readings seen in 49 states at theatres including the New York Shakespeare Festival, Goodspeed Opera, Walnut Street Theatre, Long Wharf, Manhattan Theatre Club, Library of Congress, Amas, York Theatre, Arkansas Rep, NYMF, Chicago Humanities Festival, Anchorage Opera, HERE, Iowa Shakespeare Festival, Pacific Repertory Opera, Mason Street Warehouse, Riverside Theatre, Lyceum Theatre, Raw Impressions, New Dramatists, Aaron Davis Hall, Circle Rep Lab and the NY Fringe Festival. Career highlights include the premier of Sheldon Harnick’s A Doctor In Spite Of Himself with Anthony Rapp, John Schuck, Burke Moses and Cady Huffman; the Library of Congress’s revival of Harold Arlen’s “Life Begins at 8:40” with Maestro Aaron Gandy, Kate Baldwin, Philip Chafin, Christopher Fitzgerald, Montego Glover, Rebecca Luker, Faith Prince, Graham Rowat and Jessica Stone; the first-ever revival of Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick and Joe Stein’s The Body Beautiful with Maestro John Bell, Brad Oscar, Megan Lawrence, Mike McGowan and Laura Marie Duncan (also cast recording); the revival of Joe Stein’s Plain and Fancy with Cady Huffman, Charlotte Rae, and Nancy Anderson; the first-ever revival of Lerner & Loewe’s The Day Before Spring with Hunter Bell, Amanda Watkins and Janine DaVita; the first post-Broadway production of his college classmate Jonathan Larson’s Rent; Joan Ross Sorkin’s (Mis)Understanding Mammy: The Hattie Daniels Story, which earned Capathia Jenkins a Drama Desk nomination; the first sailing of Pam Tate and Erv Raible’s “Ship of Fools” with Karen Akers, Linda Balgord, Rita Gardner, Mark Jacoby, and Sean McDermott; the premiere of Ed Dixon’s “Scenery with Dixon and Lynne Wintersteller; and all sorts of theatrical hijinks with the likes of such amazing talents as Amy Adams, Annaleigh Ashford, Klea Blackhurst, Stephen Bienskie, Ryan Duncan, Max von Essen, Beth Fowler, Ruth Gottschall, Jason Graae, Jessica Grové, Blake Hammond, Troy Britton Johnson, Si Kahn, Judy Kaye, Jack Lechner, Jenifer Lewis, John McCutcheon, Jill Paice, Jim Poulos, OK Go, Seth Rudetsky, Merri Sugarman, Ed Watts, and Nick Wyman. His widely varied repertory includes Romeo and Juliet, Dreamgirls, Don Giovanni, A Chorus Line, Tartuffe, Hair, La Traviata.

DANIEL SELIGMANN (Book and Lyrics) From the time he was very young, Dan has believed deeply in the power of story-telling. Dan majored in English and Writing at the University of Michigan and graduated in 1994. He received The Hopwood Award for a short story in the same year. After writing the musical, Dan focused his creativity on screenplays and had early success in Hollywood when he moved there in 2001. He now develops stories and screenplays as a creative executive for RCR Pictures, a start-up production company which is quickly becoming a major player in Hollywood. Dan is playing a pivotal role as the writer of the script and has arranged for a group of top tier writers and comedians to participate in a round-table writing session to prepare The Big Bank for Broadway before the NYMF production. Dan’s well-atuned musical ear has contributed greatly to the power and breadth of the score.

JACOB SELIGMANN (Music, Lyrics) Jacob has been playing the piano and writing songs since he was five years old. He majored in music theory and composition at Brown University and graduated in 1998. Since then, he has composed music for over twenty-five documentaries which have appeared on NBC, PBS, Sundance Channel, Discovery Channel, History Channel and others. With all of this professional experience to his credit, he still fully believes in The Big Bank, which was his first major project as a writer. He has come to understand that there was a rare and magical confluence of events and energies which occurred at the time he wrote The Big Bank with his brother, Daniel. Since going into production with Camilla Ross of the Emerson Theater Collaborative in April of 2011, Jacob has dedicated himself full time to facilitating The Big Bank’s success on all levels. He has been operating as the composer, arranger, script doctor, fund raiser, legal coordinator, and team organizer and motivator. He has put his other professional obligations on hold in order to be completely behind The Big Bank. Jacob believes wholeheartedly that the musical will be a successful Broadway hit and is ready to do everything in his power to make it happen.

JOHN BELL (Musical Director) New York credits include Tomorrow Morning (Outer Critics Circle nomination for Best Musical), The Body Beautiful (cast recording), Plain & Fancy, and Knickerbocker Holiday at the York Theatre Company; Meet Me In St. Louis and A Child’s Christmas in Wales at the Irish Repertory Theatre; 27 Rue de Fleurus at Urban Stages; as well as concerts, galas, and many readings and workshops of new musicals, including four productions in NYMF. He worked with the late Oscar-winner Blake Edwards on the development of his last new musical, Big Rosemary (score by Lisa Lambert & Greg Morrison). Regional credits include Oklahoma, Hello Dolly!, The Fantasticks, Cats, Forever Plaid, Cabaret, The Who’s Tommy, Smokey Joe’s Café, and Phantom. John has worked with City Center’s Encores, the New York Pops, Riverside Theatre, Westchester Broadway Theatre, Pittsburgh CLO, and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. His orchestrations were recently heard at the Kennedy Center, sung by Raul Esparza. John holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from Ithaca College, has studied at the Manhattan School of Music, and is pursuing graduate study in piano performance at CUNY. John teaches musical theatre classes and audition workshops in New York City and around the country.

DONNA TRINKOFF (GM/Line Producer) Donna’s first Off-Broadway commercial venture, SILENCE! The Musical is currently enjoying a sold-out run at Theatre 80 in New York City. She is the producing artistic director of Amas Musical Theatre, a non-profit performing arts organization in New York City. Since 1994, Donna has produced the original musicals Signs of Life, Wanda’s World, Shout! The Mod Musical, Sheba, Magpie, Dog Music, Lone Star Love or the Merry Wives of Windsor, Texas,, Stormy Weather: The Lena Horne Story, Zanna, Don’t!, Latin Heat, From My Hometown, Langston Hughes’s Little Ham, 4 Guys Named José, Reunion, Rollin’ on the T.O.B.A., Delphi or Bust, Richard Rodgers Award-winners Barrio Babies, Bobos, and The Princess and the Black-Eyed Pea; Song by Song, the Music of Michael Valenti, Galt McDermot’s Time and the Wind, an original musical revue, After Hours, and presented over 75 original musicals for the Amas Six O’Clock Musical Theatre Lab. Donna is an Associate Artistic Director of the Cabaret and Performance Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Center in CT and works with Aruba Productions on new and upcoming musicals. Donna holds a BA in English and Theatre from SUNY Binghamton. She is a graduate of the National Theatre Institute, a theatre-training program at the Eugene O’Neill Center in Waterford, CT and she received a Certificate of Merit from the Drama Studio in London. Donna is a member of the League for Professional Theatre Women. In 1998, she received the New York Municipal Art Society Award of Merit and the 2003 Galaxy Award from the NY Women’s Association.

NEW YORK MUSICAL THEATRE FESTIVAL Now in its eighth year, the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) is the largest annual musical theatre event in America and is widely regarded as the essential source for new material and talent discovery. NYMF provides a launching pad for the next generation of musicals and their creators to ensure the continued vitality of one of America’s greatest art forms. Hailed as the “Sundance of Musical Theatre,” NYMF discovers, nurtures, and promotes promising musical theatre artists and producers at all stages of development, and inspires a diverse audience through vibrant, accessible, powerful new work.

NYMF is the flagship program of National Music Theater Network, Inc., a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization. NYMF 2011 is presented in association with BroadwayWorld.com, Production Resource Group, and TheaterMania.com, and is supported by American Eagle Outfitters, Back Stage, BroadwayBox.com, BroadwayInsider.com, Clear Channel Spectacolor, Disney Store Times Square, FOX 5 New York, King Displays, NASDAQ OMX, New World Stages, Next Magazine, PMD Promotions, The Port Authority of NY & NJ, Queerty.com, Season of Savings, Terra Fossil Wines, Thomson Reuters, TheMenEvent.com, Times Square Squared, and Yelp. Major supporters include The ASCAP Foundation, BMI Foundation, Inc., The BWF Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation with the support and encouragement of Jamie Ariel Phinney, Cameron Mackintosh Foundation, The New Musical Development Foundation, The Jerome Robbins Foundation, The Rodgers & Hammerstein Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and The Theater League. NYMF is supported, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council and from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.