BROOKLYN TAVERN THEATER revives Dan Furman’s immersive musical event, IMPOSSIBLE BUT TRUE. This original “tavern musical” will tour the Brooklyn and New York areas with an opening run at the historic The Old Stone House, 336 3rd Street, Brooklyn, NY @ 7:30 pm on October 14 & 15; 28 & 29. Info at https://www.brooklyntaverntheater.com/impossible-but-true.html. [NOTE: The Soho Playhouse and other venues will be announced shortly]

IMPOSSIBLE BUT TRUE, with a book, music, and lyrics by Dan Furman, with additional lyrics by Mary-Liz McNamara is an adaptation of the legend of Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving  –  but in this one, Rip disappears for 20 years due to PTSD from serving in the Revolutionary War. The character of Rip’s hot-tempered wife, Rebecca, is expanded and we learn about how she helped lead a battle against the British. 

“Storytelling happens around a campfire or table with ale,” cites Furman, a sought-after cabaret artist and celebrated musical writer with nearly a half dozen original musicals to his credit, “that’s why I created Brooklyn Tavern Theater, to house new immersive works that bring us back to how legends like Rip were first created.”

Brooklyn Tavern Theater brings this revival to The Old Stone House. Located at the edge of Park Slope and Gowanus, this great tavern is a reconstruction of the original house which overlooked the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776. It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and provides educational programming and support for students, artists, and family events every year.  As part of the show, the most popular drink in the late 1700s, Flip, will be served up to attendees during intermission.

“Impossible But True” has an important message for our times. When the pandemic hit in 2020, many of us found ourselves temporarily trapped in our homes and apartments, contemplating the world outside our windows – and we didn’t always like what we saw.  One must imagine what people saw from out of their windows in 1776. The message – then and now – is when we try to change the world, the impossible can become true.

Directed by Cailín Heffernan and Furman as Music Director, the cast will be announced shortly. Furman and his team are currently in negotiation to bring the production to The Loft at Soho Playhouse and turn it into an early American tavern in the Catskills for a run in November, 2022.

What happens when you go to a Brooklyn Tavern Theater show? 

You’ll probably be enjoying the food and drink provided by the establishment as you watch the show take place all around you.  The taverns and unconventional theatrical spaces that Brooklyn Tavern Theater works in are small enough that the entire audience can feel included in the vast world of legend and characters. Maybe you’ll assist with a prop or join a dance?   

Dan Furman (writer lyricist, composer, Music Director)  Dan hails from Old Hickory, Tennessee (just outside Nashville). He began playing piano and composing music at an early age and went on to study composition and jazz piano at Oberlin Conservatory. After moving to New York in 2003 to play jazz, he began writing for music theater as well. He spent four years in the BMI Lehman Engels Musical Theater Workshop.  Furman is director of Brooklyn Tavern Theater, which puts on original musicals in taverns in Brooklyn and beyond.  He is composer/lyricist/bookwriter of “Impossible But True,”  and composer and lyricist for Ybor City (with Anita Gonzalez, bookwriter) and Sign In the Six O’Clock Sky (with bookwriter Arnold Schulman).  He is currently developing “The Proust Virus,” a musical about video game characters who come to life when Proust is uploaded into their game, and “The Joe Hill Revival,” an updated vision of the legacy of labor activist Joe Hill.  The Joe Hill Revival  premiered in Sept/Oct 2021 at Rustik Tavern in Brooklyn.  Dan lives in Brooklyn with his wife, neuroscientist Kim Allen.  He works in Manhattan as a jazz pianist and music director/accompanist.  (www.danfurman.com, www.brooklyntaverntheater.com)

Cailín Heffernan:   Cailín is Associate Artistic Director of Boomerang Theatre Company; Resident Director, National Schoolhouse; Creative Artist with DionysusFest, Athens Greece;  and Artistic Advisor, New Light Theatre Company. Most recently, she directed Garret Dillahunt, Michelle Hurd, Traci Godfrey and Linda S. Nelson in the sold-out streamed reading of Godfrey’s The Sweet Texas Reckoning in November of 2020 for Boomerang Theatre.  She also directed the TikTok Musical for YouTube “Work From Home, the Musical” starring Kevin Chamberlin, James Snyder, Lauren Molina and Gabriella Whiting.  In 2019, she directed the highly regarded solo show, Places, written by and starring Romy Nordlinger at the Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage Festival in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center Family Theatre presented by Tonic Theatre in conjunction with Pat Addiss. Co-directed and Co-choreographed “The Gershwin Gala, The music of George and Ira Gershwin” World Tour, Conceived, directed, co-choreographed and wrote “With A Little Help’ Aachen-Alsdorf, BRD, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” Essen BRD, Konzert Fur Kinderkrebs Klinikum, Essen, BRD, Anselmo Awards, Hudson Theatre Honoring Carol Channing, NYC, Anselmo Awards Starring Regis Philbin, NYC. She is the author of two plays – Rebel Hearts and Blooddrinker; the new musical Loveless Texas with composer/lyricist Henry Aronson; and the trilogy of novels, “The House of Atreus” – “The Book of Orestes”, “The Book of Stavros” and “The Book of Cassandra”.  Performing credits: Broadway, National Touring companies, off Broadway, Regional: Romeo and Juliet, Dirty Dancing, Swing, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, The Fantasticks, The Full Monty, Ragtime, Gaudi, The Man of La Mancha, Once On This Island, Dreamgirls, A Soldiers Play, Floyd Collins, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar,, A Chorus Line, Bubbling Brown Sugar, Play On and Evita. Corporate: State Farm, IBM, ATT, Johnson and Johnson. Master Card, Top Spot, Vienna, Austria, Bayer AG, Koln, BRD, Kodakowa Productions, Tokyo, Japan. Television and Film: Teenage Euthanasia, The Last O.G., One Life To Live, Annie, The Peacemaker, Malcolm X, The Green Jacket, Soho Murders.