Diane Paulus Will Helm WITNESS UGANDA Workshop

Tony Nominee Diane Paulus (Porgy and Bess, Pippin) is directing the workshop of Witness Uganda. Witness Uganda is the winner of the 2012 Richard Rodgers Award for Staged Readings, administered by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The musical by writer/composers Matt Gould and Griffin Matthews is also the winner of ASCAP's Dean Kay and Harold Adamson Awards and a workshop at the Vineyard Arts Project.

Loosely based on Matthews' real life story of going to Uganda, meeting a group of orphaned teens, and starting a non-profit to provide for their education, the show explores the rocky territory of gay rights in Uganda and the US, the delicate balance between aid work and cultural interference, and the evolving responsibility of Americans abroad.

Matthews, playing himself, is joined in the cast by Katie Boeck, Nondumiso Tembe, Nicolette Robinson, Kristolyn Lloyd, Kyle Scatliffe, Tyrone Davis Jr, Jamar Williams, Rodrick Covington, Melody Betts, Zurin Villanueva, and Michael Taglieri.

Co-writer Matt Gould music directs with assistant music direction by Molly Gachignard. The assistant director is Mia Walker.

American Repertory Theater is producing this invited workshop with the support of Playwrights Horizons and American Academy of Arts and Letters in NYC at the end of January.

www.witnessuganda.com