Spoon River heads to New York for off-Broadway festival

The musical Spoon River has been selected to be part of a special theatre festival celebrating Canada's 150th anniversary in New York City in 2017.

The show will be part of new plays and musicals that will be performed over a month at the Pershing Square Signature Center from June 29 to July 29, 2017.

The play was composed and adapted by P.E.I.'s Mike Ross with Soulpepper artistic director Albert Schultz and premiered in Toronto in 2014.

The musical is based on Edgar Lee Masters' seminal Spoon River Anthology. In it, more than 50 townsfolk are brought to life by 11 performer and musicians portrayingrural living in the early 20th century.

It won a Toronto Theatre Critic's Choice and Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Best Director and Outstanding New Musical.

The re-imagined show is playing in association with the Charlottetown Festival at The Mack until Aug. 20. This same version of the celebrated song-cycle will be presented in Toronto next year before making its New York premiere.

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