'Life in the Park' to Premiere in Midtown

Being homeless is hardly something to sing about, but the creators of a new musical are hoping their show, “Life in the Park,” puts new melodies in your heart and brings a better understanding for what it means to be out there in this world without shelter.

“Life in the Park,” a 90-minute musical with 16 songs, will have its world premiere Friday at the . The show was written by Gary Heath and is directed by Allen Worthy.

The matinee performance this Sunday (at 2:30pm) will benefit three Atlanta organizations that help the under-served: Angel Flight of Georgia, the and Caring for Others.

For Worthy, a 1980 graduate of North Atlanta High School’s performing arts program, it means a lot to be launching the show here. He’s worked mostly in New York and Los Angeles since his high school days, and mostly as an actor. Only in recent years has he turned to directing.

“I am of course thrilled to be back home and to be able to bring this very important world premiere to Atlanta,” Worthy said in an interview. “I’m very grateful to the Woodruff Arts Center (which controls the 14th Street Playhouse) for its support in helping us make this happen. I feel like it was meant to be — to bring this show to my hometown first.”

Heath and Worthy originally collaborated in Los Angeles on a show about Ginger Rogers called “Ginger and Me.” Heath wrote the music and Worthy directed. The two found they worked well together and when Heath set out to write his own musical, he wanted Worthy to direct.

There was an “extremely well-received” professional staged reading of “Life in the Park” in Hollywood that helped bring in investors, but the version that opens in Midtown this weekend is its first full production.

In this musical filled with contemporary and upbeat melodies, a man named Humphrey and a woman named Constance are both homeless. They’re in a city park, and it’s winter. During the course of one day, they encounter others in the park who may or may not be homeless: a prostitute, an artist, a veteran ...

When asked what his toughest challenge was as director of “Life,” Worthy was hard-pressed to answer. He paused, then said: “Early on, I realized Gary’s work in writing the show is brilliant. This show is funny, sad, poignant, and it absolutely works. It’s a musical play for the times we live in and it’s just been a joy and honor to work on it.”

The show’s creators feel they had two tough middle-aged roles to cast but “got extremely lucky” finding their leads: professional actors Thomas Silcott and Pamela Hamill, both out of Los Angeles, are originating the roles of Humphrey and Constance.

Is the show set in Atlanta?

“I purposely did not want to identify the city,” Heath said. “It could be Atlanta. It could be any large city.”

Heath wanted to create a play “that felt theatrical, and was small in scale but had something large to say,” Heath said. “I decided I wanted the setting to be a park, and when I started looking into who would be in a park, I realized it was the homeless. They too often have a story that has gone untold. I wanted to put a face and a legitimacy to those people. They are real people. People with thoughts, feelings and songs.”

The show itself may be a small-scale musical, but “on a much bigger scale, it’s a play about life itself,” Heath added. “It’s universal. In my mind, I’ve created a musical that could play 50 years from now and still have relevance.”

It is his strongest hope, he said, that theatergoers will exit the show “with a different consciousness from when they walked in at the beginning of the evening.”

In August, the show is to move to San Diego’s Lyceum Theater. And if more investors come on board, Heath and Worthy hope it can travel to many more major cities.

If you go: “Life in the Park,” opens at 8pm on Friday, June 3, and continues through June 26 (with possible hold-over to July 17). Performances are at 8pm Wednesdays through Saturdays and 2:30pm Saturdays and Sundays at the 14th Street Playhouse, 173 14th Street, Atlanta, 30309. Tickets: $42-$56. 404-733-5000, www.14thstplayhouse.org, www.vitalityvisionproductions.com or www.facebook.com/lifeinthepark.