Bedbugs!!!, a musical by Paul Leschen (Drama Desk nominee for Twist!) and Fred Sauter, begins performances tonight in New York, with an official opening September 14.
Robert Bartley directs and choreographs this story about an exterminator named Carly who, out to avenge the freak bedbug-related death of her mother, has accidentally mutated New York's bedbugs into bloodthirsty human-sized killers.
Described as a "girl-meets-bug sci-fi-rock-musical-comedy," the show premiered in 2008 at the New York Musical Theatre Festival, where it was extended due to popular demand.
Grace McLean (Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812) plays Carly. (The original Carly couldn't be in the new production because Lena Hall is busy with her Tony Award-winning performance as Yitzhak in a little Broadway show called Hedwig and the Angry Inch.)
Also in the cast are Chris Hall, Nicholas Park, Brian Charles Rooney, Danny Bolero, Tracey Conyer Lee, Barry Shafrin, Gretchen Wylder, Courtney Bassett and Colin Scott Cahill.
Music supervision is by Deborah Hurwitz, with costumes by Philip Heckman, scenic design by Adam Demerath, lighting by Kirk Fitzgerald, sound by Ed Chapman, props design by Cameron Pate, and--no doubt an extremely important credit in this show--wigs, hair and make-up by Bobbie Cliffton Zlotnik. Adam Roberts is the associate choreographer. The show is the maiden lead-producer voyage for Dale Joan Young, who co-produced the Drama Desk Award-winning The Best is Yet To Come: The Music Of Cy Coleman in 2011.
Bedbugs!!! the musical may benefit--or it may suffer--from recent news reports about bedbugs on New York City subway cars. It jibes, too, with FX's hit TV series "The Strain," a virus-vampire-zombie mashup that also features an exterminator as a major character. The story and concept crawled from the mind of Paul Leschen, whose score for the musical received a NY Innovative Theatre Awards nomination. He and Sauter have also collaborated on True Tales of Modern Love and Karma Kills.
Bedbugs!!! is scheduled to run through October 26 at the ArcLight Theatre, 152 West 71 Street.
