La Jolla Playhouse's HANDS ON A HARDBODY to Move to Broadway in 2012-13 Season!

Producers Broadway Across America (John Gore, Thomas B. McGrath, Beth Williams), Rich Entertainment Group (Bob and Mindy Rich), Barbara Whitman, Latitude Link, Dede Harris, Sharon Karmazin, and Howard and Janet Kagan just announced that the La Jolla Playhouse production of the new American musical HANDS ON A HARDBODY will bow on Broadway in the 2012-2013 season.

Inspired by true events and based on S.R. Bindler and Kevin Morris’ acclaimed 1997 documentary of the same name, the musical features a book by Doug Wright (Pulitzer Prize winner, I Am My Own Wife), lyrics by Amanda Green (Bring It On: The Musical), and music by Trey Anastasio (Phish) and Amanda Green. Directed by Neil Pepe (Broadway’s Speed-The-Plow) with musical staging by Benjamin Millepied (BLACK SWAN), the world premiere production of HANDS ON A HARDBODY opened Saturday, May 12 at La Jolla Playhouse and will play there through Sunday, June 17. Theater, dates, casting, and ticket information for the Broadway production will be announced shortly.

For ten hard-luck Texans, a new lease on life is so close they can touch it. Under a scorching sun for days on end, armed with nothing but hope, humor and ambition, they'll fight to keep at least one hand on a brand new truck in order to win it. In the hilarious, hard-fought contest that is HANDS ON A HARDBODY only one winner can drive away with the American Dream.

HANDS ON A HARDBODY was commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse (Christopher Ashley, Artistic Director & Michael S. Rosenberg, Managing Director).

Doug Wright (Book) won the Pulitzer Prize, the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for I Am My Own Wife in 2004. The play was developed at The Playhouse as the institution’s inaugural Page To Stage workshop production. He received Tony and Drama Desk nominations for his book for the Broadway musical Grey Gardens. He also authored the book for the stage incarnation of Disney’s beloved film The Little Mermaid. In 2009, he adapted and direcTed August Strindberg’s Creditors for La Jolla Playhouse in a production that was named Best Play of the Year by the San Diego Critics Circle. His stage work has been seen internationally in countries from Japan to Romania. Mr. Wright won an Obie Award for his play Quills. He went on to write the screenplay adaptation, which was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and received the Writer’s Guild of America’s Paul Selvin Award. The film garnered three Academy Award nominations and was named Best Picture by the National Board of Review. Other notable film work includes production rewrites on major releases at Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox and The Weinstein Company. For director Rob Marshall, he penned the television special Tony Bennett: An American Classic, which received seven Emmy Awards. Mr. Wright currently serves on the boards of the New York Theater Workshop, Yaddo and the Dramatists Guild. He is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, and of the Writer’s Guild of America.

TREY ANASTASIO (Music). Composer/guitarist/vocalist Trey Anastasio is a founding member of Phish. One of the most successful and innovative rock bands of the last 30 years, Phish has built a career on uncompromising musicianship and spectacular live performances. Anastasio – who also tours regularly with Trey Anastasio Band – has received GRAMMY® nominations for his recordings with Phish and for his solo work. He has collaborated with such artists as Dave Matthews, Herbie Hancock, Carlos Santana, Toots and the Maytals, B.B. King and The Roots, and – as part of the trio Oysterhead – Les Claypool (Primus) and Stewart Copeland (The Police). Named by Rolling Stone as one of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, Anastasio has performed his original compositions with numerous symphonies, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The New York Times hailed Anastasio’s Carnegie Hall performance with the New York Philharmonic as “that rarest of rarities, a classical-rock hybrid that might please partisans from both constituencies.” He is currently at work on a new solo album, which will be released this fall.