GRAND DUCHY

Loosely inspired by Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, Grand Duchy is a 30’s-style screwball comedy that tells the story of a Prince and a Rebel who switch places and turn everything upside down in the tiniest country in Europe.

With book and lyrics by Robert L. Freedman and music by John Bayless, Grand Duchy began as a graduate thesis project at NYU.  Ira Weitzman, then the director of Musical Theatre development for off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons, saw the first act of Grand Duchy and offered Robert and John a staged reading when the show was completed.