SeattleActor.com - ANNE ALLGOOD AND DAVID SILVERMAN TO HEAD CAST OF BENNETT-HELMED ''TUTOR''

Village Originals' workshop production of the new musical, THE TUTOR will feature direction by David Bennett, and performances by Seattle favorites Anne Allgood and David Silverman.

The show, by Maryrose Wood (book/lyrics) and Andre Gerle (music), was a part of the 2004 Village Originals Festival of New Musicals, in which six new musicals are given staged readings, where Allgood was also featured in the cast. David Bennett also directed the reading. The Tutor was deemed "Best of the Fest" with this workshop.

The show focuses around a struggling writer (to be played by Eric Ankrim) who is hired (by parents Anne Allgood and David Silverman) to work with and tutor their spoiled and disgruntled daughter (Vicki Noon). The show also features an alternate time and space where the writer talks to the characters in his unfinished debut novel (played by Marc Dela-Cruz and Anna Lauris, making a trip back to Seattle).

Village Theatre says, "The Tutor was inspired by stories about Ivy League graduates who strike it rich tutoring the high school kids of Manhattan 's elite. With a winning mix of clever wit and surprising warmth, The Tutor tells a fresh, funny contemporary tale of romance, art, and what it really takes to get into Princeton . When a struggling young novelist takes a job tutoring a disgruntled Manhattan girl, he thinks he's just out for quick cash. But when the characters in his novel start to come to life, and his teenage pupil begins to open up, his life takes a few surprising turns."

Village Theatre's Village Originals program has been a driving force in the northwest development of new musicals for over a decade. While venues like Fifth Avenue are able to produce full pre-Broadway stagings of new musicals, Village Originals is able to help out early on in the writing process by giving readings, like in the annual Festival of New Musicals, workshops, like The Tutor or the upcoming Feeling Electric, developmental productions, like the recent Robin Hood: The Legend Continues, ane even full-scale productions, like the current Play it by Heart. Many shows they helped to develop, like Making Tracks, Eleanor and Cupid & Psyche, have played Off-Broadway and in regional theatres across the country and around the world.

For more information on Village Theatre and their Village Originals program, please visit their website at www.villagetheatre.org

Brandon Ivie