American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) continues its 2011-12 season with Three Pianos by Rick Burkhardt, Alec Duffy and Dave Malloy, with music from Franz Schubert's Winterreise, Op. 89, D911 (1828), directed by Rachel Chavkin. The production opens on Wednesday, December 7 (press opening on Thursday, December 8 at 7pm) at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge, and runs through January 8, 2012.

"The best antidote to winter's bitter dregs...Warms spectators at the hearth of musical enthusiasm... Like being cozily tucked away with a clutch of nerdy music-loving friends, Three Pianos transforms Winterreise's spectral solitudes into a parable of artistic community." - The Village Voice

"Full-blooded and full-bodied, Three Pianos lifts its glass to music, to Schubert and to the type of friendship that can make you laugh off heartbreak. It's also a superb evening. Cheers." - TimeOut New York

The OBIE winning hit music-theatre event that wowed audiences and critics alike in its sold-out runs at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater and New York Theater Workshop - is a theatrical explosion of Franz Schubert's song cycle Winterreise. Filled with fantastical touches and inventive arrangements, Three Pianos is a colorful and imaginative evening of chaos, exploring Schubert's music, life, and times. Set on a blustery winter night, three friends - each manning a piano - lead the audience through fragments of Schubert's famous work while grappling with fundamental questions about the nature of music and drinking too much. The three pianists slip into a wild reenactment of a "Schubertiad," a musical salon party thrown by Schubert and his friends, connecting the two groups through the centuries. An evening of hilarity and heartbreak unfolds, in which the audience is invited to the party. Compositional mayhem, shifting rivalries, and some unfortunate butchery of the German language ensue.