Twenty seven months ago, the stars had aligned for the cast and crew of the new off-Broadway musical, Love Quirks. Then, of course, COVID hit and with only few performances before an audience, the show shut down in March 2020.
But while the pandemic has dealt a blow to live theater throughout the world, Love Quirks has persevered, having been honored with four BroadwayWorld Off-Broadway Awards including Best Production of a Musical.
Love Quirks is a new musical based on actual events as a group of thirty-somethings explore the bizarre tribulations of love, friendship, and all the blurry lines in-between. Four broken hearts must face the past and look to the future, as they march into the strange and often hilarious world of love on the island of Manhattan. What they find is never what they expect, and they must face up to their own Love Quirks to move forward.
Original conception
Originally conceived as a song cycle of Seth Bisen-Hersh’s quirky love songs in 2010, it became clear by original cast member Brian Childers that Love Quirks should be a full fledged musical. Childers brought his brother, playwright Mark Childers, on board in 2011. The story was expanded to create quirky, neurotic and poignant show.
After many readings and a three week off-off-Broadway production in 2014, the show was ready to open off-Broadway at the St. Luke’s Theatre on March 16th, 2020. After playing only 8 previews, 3 days before opening night, the team had no choice but to postpone the opening.
Says Bisen-Hersh: “At first we thought we would be closed for 8-10 weeks at the most and back for the summer of 2020. Pretty soon we realized it would probably be fall 2020. Then spring 2021. Then fall 2021. Finally, at the start of 2022, we saw the light at the end of the tunnel and began planning for an actual reopening this summer.”
Complicating matters were the fact that the church at St. Luke’s switched management companies for their newly renovated theater, Playhouse46 and reconfigured it for the round. By the luck of fate, the brand new AMT Theater on West 45th St. was looking for a show to fill their summer schedule for 12 weeks.
It's back!
Love Quirks opens this weekend with its first preview at Saturday, June 18 at 3 and 8 pm, followed by a 3pm show on Sunday June 19.
The show runs Off-Broadway (but close to Broadway) four shows a week at the new AMT Theater, 354 W. 45th St.: , Thursdays at 7pm, Friday and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 3pm through September 2. Use discount code LQ25 for 25% off tickets for any performance at LoveQuirks.com.
