NEW YORK (BRAIN) — Bike Shop, the Musical, first staged in 2014, has returned to the stage.
Former shop employee, bike messenger and racer Elizabeth Barkan wrote and performed the play as a one-woman show more than 10 years ago.
While the plot is not autobiographical, "Bike Shop" was inspired by a store that Barkan and a partner ran in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood in the early 1990s. The main character is Bobby, a mechanic who has retreated from life following a traumatic accident. She works in the shop founded by her Irish-immigrant grandmother in the 1930s.
During the original production, Barkan played all six parts, including the grandmother and an array of colorful customers. During much of the play, she spoke and sang while working on a bike. Although the musical spanned several decades, the bike shop set doesn’t change much.
After receiving a New York State Council on the Arts grant last year, Barkan worked with lyricist Caroline Murphy and composer Youn Young Park to turn the one-woman show into a musical with a full cast. The themes and plot are similar to the one-woman show, but there are new songs, Barkan said.
“If you're a bike nerd, you'll get the secret bike-nerd jokes. If you know nothing about bikes, you will not get them, and you will not care,” Barkan told BRAIN.
The play was set to run April 30 to May 17 at the Theater For The New City in the East Village.
More information: bikeshopmusical.com.
A version of this article ran in the May issue of Bicycle Retailer & Industry News.
