Iron Curtain is a comedy musical about the Soviet Union, with music by Stephen Weiner, lyrics by Peter Mills, and a book by Susan DiLallo.[1] The musical follows Murray and Howard, an unsuccessful musical writing team, as they attempt to write a great musical.[1] However, all of their ideas are taken. Meanwhile, Nikita Khrushchev, the Russian Premier, is becoming tired of the horrible musicals being produced by writers in the Soviet Union. He assigns Yevgenyi Onanov to create a propaganda musical, promoting Communism and working for the glory of Russia. However, the musical that Onanov creates, a bad rip-off of "Oklahoma", is terrible. Khrushchev tells Onanov to fix it, or his demise may be imminent. He also assigns Shmearnov to the problem, with the same consequences for failure. The pair kidnaps Murray and Howard to fix the musical. They are brought behind the Iron Curtain, and they begin work on the musical with the help of a crazy cast of characters.[1]
Other characters include:
The Ensemble portrays the remainder of the small characters, which manages to be a large part of the show.
The musical's off-off broadway premiere featured Marcus Neville* as Howard, Jeff Edgerton* as Murray, and Jessica Grové* as Masha.[2] The rest of the cast included Bethe B. Austin*, Larry Brustofski*, Maria Couch*, Amber Dow*, Dominic Roberts* (replaced David Miller), Dara Seitzman*, Doug Shapiro*, Robby Sharpe*, Rich Silverstein*, Gordon Stanley*, Brad York.
A * indicates a member of the Actors' Equity Association.
A California production of Iron Curtain is planned to run in April 2008.
Issaquah, WA's Village Theatre (http://www.villagetheatre.org/) (Main Stage) ran the show as part of their 2010-2011 Main Stage Season, playing from 16 March - 22 May, 2011. Village Theatre's production received rave reviews from sources all over the web and Seattle-area, and was a great success.