“Off The Wall” to be developed at The Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival

“Off The Wall”, a new original musical by Danny Abosch and Sarah Rebell, will be developed through the The Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival’s 2014 “The PiTCH” series.

The PiTCH provides a forum for musicals in their earliest stages of development. Ten musicals are selected from a pool of applicants each year. Each musical creation team is provided with a week-long residency at the Festival, located in Auburn, N.Y. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday of each week, the creative team ‘pitches’ their material to audiences in a 90-seat converted carriage house, Theatre Mack – behind the Cayuga Museum. Each presentation is approximately an hour long. Afterward, the audience and creative team engage in active dialogue about the piece and the process. This experience affords each team the ability to consider feedback and gain valuable insight into their show-in-development.

OFF THE WALL is a five character musical comedy loosely inspired by the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. When Mona Lisa is kissed by the lovelorn Vincenzo she is brought to life, causing chaos throughout Paris. The mysterious disappearance of the painting is initially blamed on Guillaume, a pompous, struggling artist whose unhappy wife Marie is drawn to Vincenzo, not knowing he caused the painting’s disappearance. The show explores what happens when one literally or figuratively goes off the wall, and demonstrates the importance of taking a second glance at preconceived notions of love and beauty.

Presentations will be July 24, 25, and 26, and tickets are available here: http://www.fingerlakesmtf.com/2014-season/the-pitch-2014/week-5/

The presentations will feature actress Samantha Massell, seen here performing a song from the show at The Metropolitan Room in New York City: