Youʼd think that a new musical set during the Revolutionary War featuring a hero thatʼs somewhere between Forrest Gump and Zelig might be something of a risky undertaking for the Fordʼs Theatre company.

Fordʼs executive artistic director Paul Tetreault doesnʼt think so. Not even a little. “I think itʼs a terrific show. I love the whole idea, and I think itʼs perfect for us,” said Tetreault, who took over in 2004 after the death of founder Frankie Hewitt.

When Tetreault, who came to Fordʼs from the famed Alley Theater in Houston, talks, you tend to listen. So chances are that “Liberty Smith,” maybe Fordʼs biggest musical undertaking ever, may just be the audience-pleaser that Tetreault thinks it will be. Heʼs been right before…Read More.

Thomas Jefferson took less than three weeks to write the Declaration of Independence. It took Marc Madnick, Eric R. Cohen, Adam Abraham and Michael Weiner more than a decade to write “Liberty Smith,” their musical about the Founding Fathers that is now playing in its world premiere at Ford’s Theatre.

The production is the tale of Liberty Smith, a fictional Founding Father, forgotten by history, who Forrest Gumps his way through the American Revolution. According to the plot, he’s the guy who really warned the colonies that the British were coming and the guy who really designed the American flag…Read More.

George Washington never claimed he couldn’t tell a lie. Benjamin Franklin didn’t fly a kite during his famous lightning experiment. And Paul Revere drank too much to make the famous midnight ride himself.

But there’s another revolutionary who does take credit for some pivotal moments in the country’s history. Even better, he sings about them.

Meet Liberty Smith, the forgotten Founding Father and fictional hero of a new musical of the same name at Ford’s Theatre…Read More.

After he spent part of his childhood and teen years acting on iconic TV shows like The Wonder Years, Beverly Hills 90210, and Hanging with Mr. Cooper – with a brief recurring role as the earnestly clueless Kellogg “Cornflake” Lieberbaum on Fresh Prince of Bel Air – Los Angeles native Michael Weiner went on to study history at UCLA, a choice that prepared him well for his current job as composer of the score for a new musical about America’s founding era…Read More.

The late, great Larry Gelbart used to say that if Hitler is alive, he hoped Der Fuehrer was out of town working on a new stage musical. That was not only funny but smart: The agony of birthing a never-before-seen tuner, as anyone who’s tried it knows, is directly proportional to the joy the show can bring to audiences. If it actually ends up work- ing, that is. Either way, the agony is real…Read More.

Ford’s Theatre will offer a world-premiere musical set in the Revolutionary War era, “Liberty Smith,” as part of its coming season, along with Horton Foote’s play “The Carpetbagger’s Children,” starring Washington theater lights Holly Twyford, Nancy Robinette and Kimberly Schraf.

The season will open with “Sabrina Fair” (Oct. 1-24) by Samuel A. Taylor, a 1950s society romance about a chauffeur’s daughter who grows up on an aristocratic family’s Long Island estate and falls for one, and then the other, of the family’s sons… Read More

Liberty Smith, the musical comedy set during the American Revolution and focusing on the “forgotten founding father,” will get its world premiere in Ford’s Theatre’s 2010-11 season in Washington, DC.

Ford’s Theatre Society director Paul Tetreault announced the slate on May 25. Liberty Smith, which has a title character connected to major names in the struggle for American independence, will play the historic venue March 23-May 21, 2011.

The musical comedy features music by Michael Weiner, lyrics by Adam Abraham and a book by Marc Madnick, Eric R. Cohen and Adam Abraham, based on an original story by Madnick and Cohen. Matt August will direct…Read More

Once in a while you have the good fortune of catching a musical in the works that reminds you how wonderful this art form can truly be. Such is the case with the abbreviated concert version of “Liberty Smith” which had two performances at the Beckett Theatre as part of NYMF on September 22.

History was never my strong subject growing up. I always preferred visiting places and learning “hands on” rather than from a textbook. Marc Madnick and Eric R. Cohen, co-writers of the book of “Liberty Smith” made learning fun…and funny. Michael Weiner and Adam Abraham add both pathos and clever wit to the show with their memorable toe-tapping music and lyrics respectively. Joe Calarco provided the swift directing… Read More