The SYCAMORE TREES Logo

Ricky Ian Gordon’s new musical, Sycamore Trees, starts previews tonight at the MAX Theatre under the auspices of the Signature Theatre. Directed by Tina Landau, the cast of Sycamore Trees includes features Farah Alvin, Marc Kudisch, Judy Kuhn, Jessica Molaskey, Matthew Risch, Diane Sutherland and Tony Yazbeck. Together with Nan Mankin, Gordon crafted the book around his family’s struggles and their reliance on each other through good and bad. In his own words:

When my father came home from World War II in 1945, my family lived in a crowded tenement in the Bronx, poor and with bed bugs. Then my parents got the idea to move to the suburbs where the dream of life flowering in a clean and spacious environment promised to be the answer. It wasn’t. This is the story of a family and what happened to them… and music is its heartbeat and inner life.

Described as personal and intimate, the show seems as if it might be the musical equivalent of one of those lyrical family dramas by Eugene O’Niell, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller that originally appeared during the 1940s and 1950s. Tickets can be bought by visiting the Signature Theatre website.