‘Borderline,’ Weston’s 2018 New Musical Award winner in concert March 3

The Weston Playhouse Theatre Company has announced that Aryanna Garber and Benjamin Velez are the winners its 12th Annual New Musical Award for their musical Borderline. The winners of the award will come together with a small ensemble of actors to rehearse and record selections from the score with Grammy winner Kurt Deutsch of Sh-K-Boom Records. And local theater fans will get a preview on Saturday, March 3.

Nominated for the award by Di Glazer of International Creative Management Partners, Borderline is a musical about Anna, a young woman living with Borderline Personality Disorder. Anna struggles to find a semblance of normalcy and intimacy within a revolving door of therapists, medications, and dysfunctional relationships.

Glazer writes that, “Garber’s book challenges the stigma of BPD, Velez’s lyrics capture the protagonist’s inner turmoil and the frustrations of the people she surrounds herself with, and his music works as a form of therapy for all the characters.” Borderline was developed, in part, at the Advanced BMI Musical Theater Workshop.

Weston Associate Artistic Director Michael Berresse will direct the project with Music Director Daniel Green. The cast includes Margo Seibert (Boardwalk Empire, Broadway’s Rocky) as Anna, Derrick Baskin (25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Memphis), Stephen Bogardus (Bright Star, White Christmas), Leo Ash Evens (School of Rock), and Katie Thompson (City Center’s Pump Boys and Dinettes).

Two free public concerts of selections from Borderline will be held on Saturday, March 3 at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the Weston Playhouse at Walker Farm. To reserve your free tickets (general admission) visit westonplayhouse.org.

Support for Weston New Works Programs has come from the Dramatists Play Service; the Frederick Loewe Foundation; Stacey Mindich Productions; Music Theatre International; the Rodgers and Hammerstein Foundation; and generous individual donors.