Allen And Gray's NEW VOICES Concert Series Will Feature Ryan M. Luevano

Allen and Gray's digital New Voices Concert series comes back to their Facebook page tonight Monday (September 28th) and will feature Ryan M. Luévano, writer of the new musical 57 Bus.

"We're resolved to lift up the marginalized storyteller by bringing their work to a diverse and new audience", says the concert's co-creator Richard Allen. "we're committed to doing that through making these stories accessible to all audiences, beyond the guidelines of the stage."

Allen and Gray uphold that promise in amplifying Ryan Luévano's story, 57 Bus, a musical inspired by the true event that took place on a bus in Oakland, California in 2013, when an 18-year-old agender high school student's skirt was set on fire by a younger African American student. The musical explores how the lives of these two children are changed forever. After being the victim of this hate crime Skylar is left to decide if the cost of self-expression in an intolerant world is worth the freedom of living as their true self. By re-evaluating Skylar's own pursuit for self-expression, they learn more about themselves and discover what they must do to find a path to healing.

The Allen and Gray New Voices Concert is on Monday, September 28th, at 8pm(ET). The concert is hosted by Allen and Gray Musical Festival producer Sierra Provencal. The New Voices Concert can be viewed live at https://www.facebook.com/AllenGrayMusicals

Ryan M. Luévano is a composer, conductor, playwright, professor of music and theatre critic in the greater Los Angeles area. He's worked as a professor of music at Woodbury University, Santa Ana College and Rio Hondo College. He is also a regular teaching artist at A Noise Within Theatre Company in Pasadena and a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America. Musicals include: Shoot Ma!, Experience Magic! and 57 Bus. Plays include Passing Time and Love is Dead. Most recently he was accepted as Artists-in-Residence at Chateau d'Orquevaux in France for summer 2021, and was awarded the Denis Diderot Grant for his work on the musical 57 Bus.
Allen and Gray are award winning musical theater writers with a bent on social justice and reform. With a penchant for historical accuracy, they created FREEDOM RIDERS: The Civil Rights Musical about the 1961 freedom rides, BAYARD: A New Musical about Bayard Rustin's creation of the 1963 March on Washington, and WALT AND ROY about Walt and Roy Disney's startup of the Disney empire in the 1920's - 30's. Their newest musical LEGENDARY is an original story dealing with the silencing women face in the music industry.

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