- Book, Music & Lyrics by Ted Shen
- Scenic Design Robert Brill
- Costume Design Susan Hilferty
- Lighting Design Jennifer Schriever
- Sound Design Matt Rowe
- Projections Design Rocco DiSanti
- Orchestrations Bruce Coughlin
- Music Direction Zak Sandler
- Directed by Jonathan Butterell
World Premiere
From the director of Signature’s Giant comes this intimate new musical about unexpectedly finding love when you are least looking for it. Two savvy New Yorkers are seated next each other at a dinner party – he is mourning the recent loss of his wife; she is newly divorced. They share a passion for art. Neither wants nor feels that they deserve to find love – and yet they are irresistibly drawn to the other. This lyrical duet showcases their journey towards happiness against all the odds.
Listen to a song! I Can’t Wait – A Second Chance
LIMITED ENGAGEMENT
In addition to the mainstage productions, Signature will also be presenting three shows with limited engagements. Subscription add-on tickets for these limited engagements are $41 each.
The Cast
Brian Sutherland SIGNATURE: And the Curtain Rises. BROADWAY: The Sound of Music, 1776, Victor/Victoria, Steel Pier, Cats, Dance a Little Closer, A Change in the Heir, 110 in the Shade (NYC Opera). TOURS: The Light in the Piazza, Disney’s On the Record, Cabaret (w/Joel Grey), 42nd Street (European tour). DC AREA: Arena Stage: Guys and Dolls, Fords Theatre Shenandoah. REGIONAL: St. Louis Rep: Kiss Me, Kate; Fantasticks; Pittsburgh Public: Man of La Mancha; Guthrie Theatre: Pirates of Penzance; Coconut Grove Playhouse: Breaking Legs; Cincinnati Playhouse: She Loves Me; Indiana Rep: Enter the Guardsman. UPCOMING: Film: Burning Blue.
Diane Sutherland SIGNATURE: Sycamore Trees (Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Ensemble). BROADWAY: The Light in the Piazza, She Loves Me (Amalia-1994 Revival), 1776, Three Sisters, Song and Dance, Cats (original company), A Chorus Line. OFF-BROADWAY: Transport Group: First Ladies Suite, Requiem for William; The Waves. NATIONAL TOURS: The Light in the Piazza, Guys & Dolls (50th Anniversary Tour), Cabaret, Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, (First National Tour) Cats (Helen Hayes Award). REGIONAL: A Civil War Christmas, Kiss Me Kate, Enter the Guardsman, Edwin Drood, Into the Woods, A Little Night Music, American Vaudeville. RECORDINGS: She Loves Me (1994), Guys & Dolls (50th Anniversary), Gershwin’s Tell Me More, Man with a Load of Mischief (2004).
Creative Team
Ted Shen (Book, Music & Lyrics) A Second Chance marks Mr. Shen’s debut as a musical theater writer. Following a 30-year business career as an executive at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Mr. Shen sought to return to his music roots developed as a jazz musician during his school years. Spurred by his passion for the work of Stephen Sondheim, he decided to take up songwriting, which he studied with Ricky Ian Gordon from 2001 to 2003. In 2008 he began writing A Second Chance, which was presented in concert version by the New York Public Theater at Joe’s Pub in September, 2010. Mr. Shen would like to express his deep gratitude to Oskar Eustis and Jonathan Butterell for their invaluable guidance in shaping the show’s libretto; to Diane Sutherland, Brian Sutherland, Joseph Thalken and the entire creative team for their extraordinary collaborative support; to Eric Schaeffer and his Signature Theatre colleagues for their belief in the show; and, especially, to Mary Jo Shen, for her loving encouragement and inspiration for this story.
Jonathan Butterell (Director) BROADWAY: Musical Staging/Choreography: The Light in the Piazza, Assassins, Nine (Revival, starring Antonio Banderas), Fiddler on the Roof (Revival, recreated Jerome Robbins’ choreography). NEW YORK: Sondheim’s Wise Guys (original workshop); Lincoln Center: A Man of No Importance; City Center: Public Sings! (50th Anniversary Celebration of the Public Theatre); Director: Whida Peru; Resurrection Tangle, Mosaic, (part of Inner Voices). ENGLAND: Donmar Warehouse: Nine, Company, Habeas Corpus, Into the Woods (Co-directed), How I Learned to Drive, The Maids, Electra; Royal Haymarket: Alone Together (devised and directed); West End: Sondheim’s Passion; Associate Director: Royal National: Othello; RSC: Hamlet; Co-director: Royal Festival Hall: Peter Pan; Opera North: Sweeney Todd. TOKYO: Theatre Project Tokyo: Williams’ Orpheus Descending; Strindberg’s Creditors. FILM: Choreography: Finding Neverland (starring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet); STAY (starring Ewan McGregor).
Zak Sandler (Music Director, Conductor/Pianist) SIGNATURE: Sweeney Todd, See What I Wanna See, Les Misérables, Ace, The Hollow (21/24 workshop). NEW YORK: The Ohmies, Camp Wanatachi. DC AREA: Kennedy Center: Snow White, Rose Red (and Fred!), Broadway: Three Generations); Studio Theatre: Caroline, Or Change. REGIONAL: Goodspeed: Band Geeks; Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma: Oliver. AWARDS: Shen Prize for Musical Theatre Composition, Fenno Heath Award, NFAA ARTS Merit Award, Washington Post Music and Dance Scholarship Award. AFFILIATIONS: Composer, BMI's Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Writing Workshop (Advanced). EDUCATION: Yale College, BA, Music. UPCOMING: Off-Broadway: Triassic Parq.
Bruce Coughlin (Orchestrations) SIGNATURE: Sycamore Trees, Giant, Saving Aimee, The Witches of Eastwick. BROADWAY: 9 To 5, The Light in the Piazza (Tony® and Drama Desk Awards), Guys and Dolls (2009 revival), Grey Gardens, Urinetown, The Wild Party, Annie Get Your Gun, Lestat (additional orchestrations), On the Town, The Sound of Music, Triumph of Love, Once Upon a Mattress, The King and I. OFF-BROADWAY: The Burnt Part Boys, Happiness (Susan Stroman, dir.), Mother Courage (with Meryl Streep), See What I Wanna See, Floyd Collins, Little Fish, Das Barbecü. REGIONAL: Tales of the City, Dangerous Beauty, Pop!, The Grapes of Wrath (opera; Gordon/Korie), Children of Eden, Candide (National Theatre, London). FILM: Hairspray (“Miss Baltimore Crabs” with Marc Shaiman), Fantasia 2000. AWARDS: Winner of one Tony®, one Drama Desk and one Obie. He has also received three additional Tony® nominations and six additional Drama Desk nominations. www.brucecoughlin.com
Robert Brill (Set Design) BROADWAY: Guys and Dolls (Tony nomination), Assassins (Tony nomination), The Story of My Life, Cabaret, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Good Body, Laugh Whore, Anna in the Tropics, Design for Living, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Buried Child, The Rehearsal and the upcoming revival of Jesus Christ Superstar. REGIONAL: Metropolitan Opera/English National Opera: Faust; Dallas Opera and others: Moby Dick; San Diego Opera: Wozzeck; Radio City: Sinatra; La Jolla Playhouse: The Wiz; Royal George Chicago: White Noise; Disney: On the Record; Boston Ballet: An American in Paris; Steppenwolf: A Clockwork Orange; Mark Taper Forum and McCarter Theatre: Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; The Laramie Project (New York, Denver, Berkeley, La Jolla); Stratford Festival; Lincoln Center Theatre; Guthrie; Goodman; American Conservatory Theater; Old Globe; Oregon Shakespeare Festival and others. Founding member of Sledgehammer Theatre. AWARDS: Recipient of the 2004 Michael Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration.
Susan Hilferty (Costume Design) SIGNATURE: Giant, The Visit. BROADWAY: Wonderland, Sondheim on Sondheim, Radio Golf, Spring Awakening, Lestat, Wicked, Assassins, The Good Body, Master Harold…and the Boys, Into the Woods, Dirty Blonde, and others. OFF-BROADWAY: Many productions with The Public Theater, Second Stage, Manhattan Theater Club, Playwright’s Horizons, New York Theater Workshop and others. REGIONAL: Many productions with ACT San Francisco, ACT Seattle, Berkeley Rep, Center Stage, Goodman Theater, Guthrie Theater, Hartford Stage, La Jolla Playhouse, McCarter Theater, Seattle Rep, Williamstown Theater Festival and others. OPERA: Manon, La Finta Gardiniera, Katya Kabanova. OTHER: 2011 Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Taylor Swift 2011 “Speak Now” World Tour. AWARDS: Tony Award and Nominations, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Drama League Awards. Recipient of the 2010 Ruth Morley Design Award, the 2011 Lilly Award and the 2000 OBIE for Sustained Excellence in Design.
Jennifer Schriever (Lighting Design) BROADWAY: Ghetto Klown. OPERA: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mariinsky, Russia), The Pearl Fishers (ENO, London). OFF BROADWAY: 59E59: Premiers: Inner Voices Solo Musicals, with Jonathan Butterell; Union Square: Stuffed and UnStrung; L.A. & Town Hall: An Evening Without Monty Python; Cherry Lane: Kaboom; Flamboyan: 3 Incestuous Sisters, As Far As We Know. REGIONAL/OTHER: Oasis of the Seas: Hairspray; Berlind Theatre, McCarter: A Streetcar Named Desire, The Winter’s Tale; Engeman: Lend me a Tenor, Other People's Money; Loft: The Epic of Sunjata. ASSOCIATE DESIGN: BROADWAY: The Mountaintop, The House of Blue Leaves, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Fences, A Behanding in Spokane, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, You’re Welcome America, American Buffalo, 13 - A New Musical, A Catered Affair, Cymbeline, The Vertical Hour, The Color Purple, The Threepenny Opera.
Matt Rowe (Sound Design) SIGNATURE: The Boy Detective Fails, The Hollow, Side by Side by Sondheim, And the Curtain Rises, Sunset Boulevard, Walter Cronkite is Dead., A Fox on the Fairway, Chess, Sycamore Trees, [title of show], Sweeney Todd, Show Boat, First You Dream: The Music of Kander & Ebb, Dirty Blonde, Giant, The Little Dog Laughed, Les Misérables, Anyone Can Whistle in Concert, The Visit, The Happy Time, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Glory Days, Merrily We Roll Along, The Witches of Eastwick. DC AREA: Olney Theatre: Witness for the Prosecution; Kennedy Center: Snow White, Rose Red (and Fred); Nobody’s Perfect.
Rocco DiSanti (Projection Design) BROADWAY: Time Stands Still, Collected Stories. OFF BROADWAY: Completeness, Inner Voices, A Second Chance, Metamorphosis, Imelda the Musical, Bright New Boise (Obie Award Best New Play), Monster. OPERA: I Fioretti in Musica, Alli Uccelli e Al Lupo. TOUR: Shen Wei Dance Arts. AWARDS: Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Showcase, Hemsley Finalist.
Megan Loughran (Assistant Director) New York City: Under St. Mark's Theatre: Blogologues: I Need a Vocation; The Rainbow Room: Yale University's Sterling Fellows Gala; Joe's Pub at the Public Theatre: Hot as Cole. EDUCATION: Graduate of Yale University: B.A. Theatre Studies, 2009. Alumna of The American Theatre Wing's SpringBoardNYC professional training program. Recipient of the Bridget P. Fry cup for excellence in the arts at Yale.
Julie Meyer (Production Stage Manager) SIGNATURE: The Boy Detective Fails, I Capture the Castle (21/24 workshop), Art, Sunset Boulevard, Walter Cronkite is Dead., Chess, Tamar and the River (21/24 workshop), [title of show], I Am My Own Wife, Show Boat, Dirty Blonde, The Boy Detective Fails (21/24 workshop), Giant, Glory Days, Les Misérables. OFF-OFF-BROADWAY: Fist in a Pocket: Washing Machine. REGIONAL: Lyric Theatre: Stephen Schwartz’s new musical Snapshots: a Musical Scrapbook, Disney’s High School Musical, Oklahoma! Evita, Singin’ in the Rain, Once on This Island; ReVision Theatre: Hair!, Scrooge in Rouge; Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre: Jane Eyre; Little Me; Dirty Blonde; I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. EDUCATION: Rutgers University, MFA, Stage Management.