New Line Theatre Snags the American Regional Premiere of "Cry-Baby: The Musical," Based on John Waters' Cult Classic Film

St. Louis, MO, November 06, 2010 --(PR.com)-- The Wall Street Journal called it "the funniest new musical since Avenue Q." New Line Theatre, "The Bad Boy of Musical Theatre," has been granted the first production rights in the country for the American regional premiere of the Broadway rockabilly musical Cry-Baby, based on John Water's cult classic film starring Johnny Depp. The original creative team is revising the show for New Line, to make it a smaller, more intimate musical, and it will run here in St. Louis next season, for four weeks in spring 2012.

As it was with New Line Theatre's American regional premiere of High Fidelity, New Line will mount the first production of Cry-Baby since its Broadway run. And like the company did for the under-appreciated High Fidelity, the New Liners hope to give Cry-Baby new life as well. Since New Line produced High Fidelity in 2008, more than a dozen other companies have come to New Line to get in contact with that show's creators to secure production rights.

Cry-Baby has a score by David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger, and a book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan. O'Donnell and Meehan also adapted John Waters' Hairspray for the musical stage. Cry-Baby focuses on teenager Allison Vernon-Williams in 1954 Baltimore, right at the birth of rock and roll, who wanders across the tracks from her square boyfriend and finishing-school life into a relationship with the orphaned Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker, the leader of a pack of "bad kids." The musical premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in November 2007 and opened on Broadway in April 2008.

Cry-Baby was nominated for four Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Choreography. It was also nominated for Best Musical by the Drama League and the Outer Critics Circle Awards. The show received mixed reviews, but some critics fully understood the outrageous, subversive social satire the creative team had crafted. Terry Teachout, in the Wall Street Journal, wrote "You want funny? I'll give you funny, or at least tell you where to find it: Cry-Baby, the new John Waters musical, is campy, cynical, totally insincere and fabulously well crafted. And funny. Madly, outrageously funny. It is, in fact, the funniest new musical since Avenue Q. If laughter is the best medicine, then Cry-Baby is the whole damn drugstore." Newsday called the show "pleasantly demented and -- deep in the sweet darkness of its loopy heart -- more true to the cheerful subversion of a John Waters movie than its sentimental big sister Hairspray." The New Jersey Star-Ledger called it, "candy for adults who like their musicals nutty -- and not so nice."

For other information, visit New Line Theatre's full-service website at www.newlinetheatre.com. All programs are subject to change.

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