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| keith carradine |
We have seen the future, and it is a new musical called HANDS ON A HARDBODY. My PRISCILLA castmate Keala Settle has spent three weeks working on a mysterious workshop for the La Jolla Playhouse and to my great joy she invited tt and I to attend the first invitation only performance in a rehearsal room at 890 Broadway (the studios Michael Bennett built). What a show! What a cast! What a production!
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| keala settle |
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brian d'arcy james
nick blaemire
connie ray
dale soules
jarrod emick
kate rockwell
scott wakefield
leah hocking
manuel herrera
william youmans
david larsen
allison case |
Adapted from an award winning documentary by S.R. Bindler about an endurance contest in Texas which required entrants to keep their hands on a new Nissan pick up truck until only one person was left standing (the winner lasted more than five days), this brilliant piece of theatre was written by Doug Wright (QUILLS), Amanda Green (Adolph Green & Phyllis Newman's daughter and lyricist of THE WEDDING SINGER) and Trey Anastasio (of the band PHYSH). Directed by Neil Pepe with stunningly imaginative choreography by Benjamin Millepied (BLACK SWAN...and yes, Natalie Portman was there!), the show has echoes of WORKING and A CHORUS LINE with a "country" flavoured score and an emotional punch that had us in floods of tears for most of the performance. As tt pointed out, this will be a staple at regional theatres for years to come and I can't wait for HARDBODY to be unveiled to the general public. In the meantime, we'll be keeping an eye out for the documentary.
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ReplyDeleteGosh.. How wonderful.. Dale Soules was in the original production of THE MAGIC SHOW creating the role that Samantha Sang played here. Also in the Oz production was Natalie Mosco who played the Anita Morris role here and then later on Broadway. Another bit of trivia is that in the original Broadway orchestra for THE MAGIC SHOW was Paul Shaffer of David Letterman fame.
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