New Muhammad Ali Musical ALI Will Have its World Premiere In Louisville in Fall 2024

Richard Willis, lead producer of ALI, the new musical celebrating the life and legacy of the heavyweight boxing champion and humanitarian Muhammad Ali, has announced the World Premiere of ALI will be presented in Ali's hometown of Louisville, at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, in Fall 2024. Additional members of the creative and design team have also been announced.

Willis said "We are proud to announce these extraordinarily gifted artists joining the ALI creative team. We look forward to the collaboration, as we build the most innovative and entertaining musical possible, in celebration of the great man's life and legacy. We are also beyond delighted to announce the show's world premiere will take place in the great city of Louisville, where it all began. It is going to be an incredibly special event for everyone involved, and we hope to bring joy and healing to all Louisvillians, in light of the senseless tragedies over the past week."

Clint Dyer, ALI director and book writer, added "I am excited and inspired to be aligned with this incredible group of artists, and we are thrilled that a casting search for the role of Muhammad Ali is underway."

Teddy Abrams said "I am absolutely thrilled that we will be premiering ALI in Louisville, the shared hometown of Muhammad and Lonnie Ali, the Louisville Orchestra, and myself! I am honored to be working alongside the exceptionally talented artists on our creative team and I can't wait for us to share this production with the world. Muhammad cared deeply for Louisville his entire life, and I know that he would be very happy that we'll be celebrating his story at the Kentucky Center in the fall of 2024!"

Joining the previously announced director and book writer Clint Dyer (Deputy Artistic Director of The National Theatre; Othello; Olivier Award-nominated Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical; Death of England/Death of England: Delroy), and composer Teddy Abrams (youngest Musical Director to lead a major American Orchestra, Musical America's Conductor of the Year Award for 2022), ALI will feature Choreography/Fight Choreography by Rich + Tone Talauega (MJ The Musical), Set Design by Anna Fleischle (Olivier Award Winner, Tony Award Nominee - Hangmen, Once Upon a One More Time, Time Traveller's Wife), Costume Design by Emilio Sosa (Sweeney Todd, 2-time Tony Award Nominee for Trouble In Mind and The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess), Lighting Design by Jen Schriever (A Strange Loop - Tony Award Nominee, 1776), Video/Projections/Media Design by Tal Yarden (Network - Tony Award Nominee, Sunday in the Park with George) and Gino Ricardo Green (Get Up Stand Up, The National Theatre's Othello), Sound Effects Design by Ben Grant (The National Theatre's Othello, Get Up Stand Up). The Associate Director is Asmeret Ghebremichael (The Notebook, Dreamgirls), Creative Dramaturge is Fred Carl (Associate Arts Professor in the NYU Tisch Graduate School for Musical Theatre Writing), Special Boxing Consultant and Fight Coordinator is Michael "Silk" Olajide, Jr. (former Middleweight Champion; trained by Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali's World Champion trainer; Blade to the Heat; Fetch Clay, Make Man), and Casting Director is Jim Carnahan. Additional members of the creative and design teams will be announced soon.

ALI is produced by Richard Willis, Brook T. Smith, David & Michelle Campbell, and TheTribecaWorkshop in collaboration with ABG Entertainment in partnership with Lonnie Ali. In telling Muhammad Ali's story, ALI will utilize the musical theatre medium to explore the life of the man who overcame tremendous odds to become the G.O.A.T and who used his platform to become one of the most influential and inclusive civil rights leaders the world may ever know.

Deemed "The Greatest of All Time," Ali was born in 1942 and raised during the early years of television and the American dream. His childhood in Louisville, Kentucky, along with the love and devotion from his mother (and later from his wife Lonnie), set the stage for him to become not only the greatest boxer of all time, as well as an activist, entertainer, artist, and philanthropist. Ali's combination of courage, confidence, swagger, compassion, humor and optimism united people during The American Civil Rights Movement, and his vision for a world without hate inspired generations of activists who continue to inspire today's generation.

Casting will be announced soon.

Creative Team Biographies

Clint Dyer (Writer/Director/Actor) was appointed as Deputy Artistic Director of The National Theatre in 2021, where he recently directed Othello, the first Black director to do so at the theatre. He directed the Olivier, Evening Standard, and WhatsOnStage-nominated show The Big Life at Theatre Royal Stratford East, which become the first Black British musical to go the West End. He went on to write and direct Sylvia Plath and direct the award-winning The Westbridge at the Royal Court; Roy Williams's hit play Kingston 14 at Theatre Royal Stratford-East; write Starter Motor for the BBC's "Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle" monologues; and write and co-direct with Simon McBurney The Happy Tragedy of Being Woke for Complicité. Clint Dyer reopened The National Theatre in 2020 with Death of England: Delroy, which won Best Play at the Visionary Awards and was directed and co-written with Roy Williams. It was the sequel to the celebrated Death of England (nominated for Best Director, Black British Theatre Awards). This made him the first Black artist to act, write and direct at The National Theatre. Death of England: Face to Face, his feature-length film for The National Theatre and SKY TV, was nominated for Best Single Drama at the BAFTA TV awards, Royal Television Society Awards, Broadcast Digital Media Awards, Broadcast Awards and C21 International Awards. Clint Dyer directed Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical, which received four 2022 Olivier Award nominations including Best New Musical and won Best Original Score/New Orchestrations, was nominated for 10 WhatsOnStage awards, had two nominations for the Best Musical and Best Actor at the Evening Standard Awards and won for Best Actor in a Musical and Best Musical Director at the Black British Theatre Awards. As an actor, his work includes Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Best Actor, I.A.R. Awards) at The National Theatre. Over the course of his extensive acting career in theatre, film and television, he has worked with heralded directors Mike Leigh, Dominic Cooke, Ian Rickson, Simon McBurney, Michael Attenborough, and Alejandro Amenábar. He has won many acting awards most notably for his starring role in the film SUS. Clint Dyer was recently nominated for Best Actor for Ferryman at the Alberta Film Festival.

Teddy Abrams (Composer). Named Musical America's 2022 Conductor of the Year, Teddy Abrams is the widely acclaimed Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra. In his ninth season as Music Director, Teddy launches the Orchestra's groundbreaking Creators Corps-a fully-funded residency for three composers-and the Orchestra goes on tour across Kentucky in a first-of-its-kind multiyear funding commitment from the Kentucky State Legislature.

Abrams's rap-opera, The Greatest: Muhammad Ali, premiered in 2017, celebrating Louisville's hometown hero with an all-star cast that included Rhiannon Giddens and Jubilant Sykes, as well as Jecorey "1200" Arthur, with whom he started the Louisville Orchestra Rap School. Abrams's work with the Louisville Orchestra has been profiled on CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, PBS' Articulate, and the PBS NewsHour.

Highlights of the 2022-2023 season include guest conducting engagements with the Cincinnati, Kansas City, Utah, Colorado, and Pacific Symphonies, a return to conduct the the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, and his debut with the Tiroler Symphonieorchester Innsbruck.

Abrams has been Music Director and Conductor of the Britt Festival Orchestra since 2013, where, in addition to an annual three-week festival of concerts, he has taken the orchestra across the region in the creation of new work-including Michael Gordon's Natural History, which was premiered on the edge of Crater Lake National Park in partnership with the National Parks Service, and was the subject of the PBS documentary "Symphony for Nature;" and Pulitzer Prize-winning-composer Caroline Shaw's Brush, an experiential work written to be performed in Summer 2021 on the Jacksonville Woodlands Trail system.

Abrams recently collaborated with Jim James, vocalist and guitarist for My Morning Jacket, on the song cycle The Order of Nature, which they premiered with the Louisville Orchestra in 2018 and recorded on Decca Gold. They performed the work with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in 2019.In addition to The Order of Nature, Teddy and the Louisville Orchestra recorded All In in 2017 with vocalist Storm Large. Most recently, he released Space Variations, a collection of three new compositions for Universal Music Group's 2022 World Sleep Day.

As a guest conductor, Abrams has worked with such distinguished ensembles as the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Chicago, San Francisco, National, Houston, Pacific, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Vancouver, Colorado, Utah, and Phoenix Symphonies; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; and the Sarasota and Florida Orchestras. Internationally, he has worked with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, and the Malaysian Philharmonic. He served as Assistant Conductor of the Detroit Symphony from 2012-2014. From 2008 to 2011, Abrams was the Conducting Fellow and Assistant Conductor of the New World Symphony.

https://www.teddyabrams.com/

Rich + Tone Talauega (Choreographers/Fight Choreographers) Rich + Tone Talauega's talents encompass wide-ranging success as music video directors, creative directors, musicians, producers, and performers who are at the forefront of today's pop culture movement. As teenagers, Rich + Tone were discovered by Michael Jackson's choreographer while free-styling at a club in Oakland, CA. Within a year, Rich + Tone were on their way to becoming legendary dancers and choreographers, having toured with both Diana Ross and Michael Jackson within months of moving to Los Angeles. Rich + Tone are the 2022 Outer Critics Circle Awards winner and Drama Desk Awards nominee for Outstanding Choreography for Broadway's MJ The Musical. Their projects include work for Bacardi, Tiffany, iPod, Coca-Cola, X-Box, Pepsi, Gap, Mitsubishi, Old Navy, Kia, as well as the feature films Ferdinand, Step Up 3D, and Save The Last Dance, among others. They also choreographed and produced Baz Luhrmann's acclaimed series "The Get Down" for Netflix. On stage, Rich + Tone choreographed multiple numbers in Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour and Cirque du Soleil's Michael Jackson ONE in Las Vegas. In 2019 Rich & Tone directed the Backstreet Boys DNA World tour. Upcoming projects include Apple TV+'s "Lady in the Lake" starring Natalie Portman. Rich + Tone creative directed Madonna's MDNA Tour, the highest grossing tour of 2012, and her Super Bowl XLVI Half Time Show performance, the second most-watched live televised event in US history. They were also the associate directors and choreographers of Miley Cyrus's 2014 Bangerz Tour. Rich + Tone have been nominated for numerous MTV Video Music Awards and received an Emmy nomination for their work on the 2005 NAACP Image Awards.

Anna Fleischle (Set Design) is an Olivier award-winning and Tony Award-nominated production set and costume designer. Theatre includes Death Of A Salesman (Broadway 2022/Young Vic/West End); John Gabriel Borkman (The Bridge); Much Ado about Nothing (National Theatre); Hangmen (Broadway/ Royal Court/ West End, Tony Award nominee 2022, 2016 Olivier Award Winner for Best Set Design, Critic's Circle Award Best Designer, Evening Standard Award Best Design); The Collaboration (Young Vic, Broadway); 2:22 A Ghost Story (West End, Ahmanson Theatre LA); House of Shades, The Writer, Before the Party (Almeida); Hamlet (Young Vic); The Forest (Hampstead Theatre); Don Juan In Soho; The End Of Longing (West End); Once Upon A One More Time (Nederlander); A Kind Of People; Liberian Girl (Royal Court) The Kid Stays In The Picture (Royal Court & Complicité); Two Ladies; A German Life; A Very Very Very Dark Matter (Bridge Theatre); Home I'm Darling (Theatr Clwyd/ National Theatre/ West End, 2019 Olivier Award nominee for Best Set Design and Best Costume Design); The Way Of The World (Donmar Warehouse); Everybody's Talking About Jamie (Crucible/ Sheffield/ West End/ UK tour/ LA/ Korea); Much Ado About Nothing; Troilus and Cressida (Shakespeare's Globe); Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (Old Vic); Beware Of Pity (Schaubühne, Berlin/ Complicité); The Two Noble Kinsmen; Cymbeline; Love's Sacrifice (RSC); West Side Story, Blindsided, Saturday Night & Sunday Morning, Rats Tails (Manchester Royal Exchange) You Can See The Hills; Love and Money (Manchester Royal Exchange /Young Vic). Opera includes L'Orfeo (Vienna Staatsoper); Weimar Nightfall: Seven Deadly Sins (LA Philharmonic). Dance includes: Message in a Bottle (Sadler's Wells); John; Can We Talk About This? (DV8 Physical Theatre / NT / International tour). Fellowships include Founding Member of Scene/Change; Associate Artist, Young Vic; Trustee Regent's Park Open Air Theatre.

Emilio Sosa (Costume Design) is the Chair of the American Theatre Wing. His Broadway credits include Sweeney Todd, Goodnight, Oscar; By The Way, Meet Vera Stark; A Beautiful Noise; 1776; Ain't No Mo; Trouble in Mind (Tony Award nomination); Skeleton Crew; On Your Feet!; Motown: The Musical; Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill; The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (Tony Award nomination); Topdog/Underdog. TV and film: "Annie Live!" (NBC) and Red Hook Summer (directed by Spike Lee). Recipient of the NAACP Theater and Lucille Lortel awards and a Drama Desk nominee. Usher's Las Vegas residency, Blue Man Group tour, Big Apple Circus, The Rockettes, NY Knicks City Dancers, Diana Ross, Mariah Carey, Gloria Estefan and Wynton Marsalis. @esosafashion

Jen Schriever (Lighting Design) Broadway: A Strange Loop (Tony Award Nomination), Death of a Salesman, 1776, Birthday Candles, Lackawanna Blues, Grand Horizons, What the Constitution Means to Me, Lifespan of a Fact, Eclipsed, Ghetto Klown. Off-Broadway includes: Bright New Boise, My Broken Language, Thom Pain, Night is a Room (Signature); To My Girls, Superhero (2ST); Shhhh, (Atlantic). Tours: Blue Man Group. Opera: Die Fledermaus, Pearl Fishers (Met); Faust, A Midsummer Night's Dream, La Traviata, (Mariinsky, Russia). Obie Award. Adjunct: Purchase. Mom: Henry. jenschriever.com

Tal Yarden (Co- Video/Projections/Media Design): Broadway: Network, The Waverly Gallery, Indecent, Sunday in the Park with George, The Crucible; West End: Get Up, Stand Up, Anna X, Hamlet; Regional and Off-Broadway: Becky Nurse of Salem, Ocean Filibuster, A Walk on the Moon, Grey Rock, Passing Strange, Between the World and Me, The Undertaking, Indecent, King Lear, Distracted, Lazarus, Little Foxes, Liberty City, The Misanthrope, & Lush Valley; International: My Brilliant Friend, Obsession, Antigone, The Damned, Kings of War, The Fountainhead, Antonioni Project, Roman Tragedies, Mourning Becomes Electra, Angels in America, Husbands, and Edward II; Opera: The Exterminating Angel, Between Worlds, The Rise and Fall of Mahagonny, Salome, Der Schatzgräber, Mazeppa, La Clemenza de Tito, Idomeneo, Brokeback Mountain, Ring Cycle, Macbeth. Tal Yarden has collaborated with Clint Dyer, Melly Still, Sarna Lapine, Robert Icke, Deborah Warner, Ivo van Hove, Tom Cairns, Reza Abdoh, and Lucy Sexton. He has directed videos for Pat McGrath, Rick Owens, Balenciaga, Annie Lennox, Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg, James Brown, Wyclef Jean, Peaches, & Patti Smith. His video, "Counting Sheep" was featured in Times Square. Awards include: 2018 Molière Award for Visual Creation, 2019 Lucille Lortel Award & nominations for Tony, Drama Desk, Hewes, Outer Critics, Barrymore awards.

Gino Ricardo Green (Co-Video/Projections/Media Design) is a director and video/projection designer. He is co-founder of Black Apron Entertainment. Credits as Video/Projection Designer include Othello (National Theatre, Co-Video Designer); The Ballad of St Johns Carpark (Icon Theatre); Treason: The Musical in Concert (West End); That is Not Who I Am (Royal Court Theatre); Kabul Goes Pop: Music Television Afghanistan (Brixton House & Hightide); Edge (NYT); Lava (Bush Theatre); Children's Children (Director of Photography/Editor - English Touring Theatre); Beyond The Canon and Poor Connection (RADA); Sweat (Donmar Warehouse & West End); Passages: A Windrush Celebration (Black Apron at the Royal Court); Hashtag Lightie (Arcola Theatre); Lightie (Projection Designer - Gate Theatre). Credits as Associate Video/Projection Designer include Small Island (National Theatre); Get Up Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical (West End) and Be More Chill (The Other Palace & West End).

Benjamin Grant (Sound Effects Design) worked as Sound Effects Designer on Get Up Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical (Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Ave). Recent sound design credits include: Othello, Death of England & Death of England: Delroy (Co-Sound Designer & Composer, National Theatre); A Fight Against (Royal Court); Michael Kohlhaas (Schaubühne); Maggot Moon (Unicorn Theatre); I'll Take You To Mrs Cole (Pleasance Beyond); The Last of the Pelican Daughters (Pleasance Beyond); Education Education Education (Trafalgar Studios); The War of The Worlds (New Diorama Theatre); Prurience (Southbank Centre/Guggenheim Museum NYC); The Road Awaits Us (Sadler's Wells). Grant studied Theatre Sound at Central School of Speech and Drama and is currently an Associate Artist of The Wardrobe Ensemble. benjamingrant.co.uk

Asmeret Ghebremichael (Associate Director) is an actress, singer, and director. She spent this past fall as the associate director for the world premiere of The Notebook in Chicago. She also served as Artistic Director of the Big Sky Summer Theatre Festival and an artistic consultant on the "South Park: Pandemic Special" (Comedy Central). On Stage, her resume includes the original casts of The Book of Mormon, Elf, Legally Blonde, Spamalot, Wicked, Footloose and the West End cast of Dreamgirls. On Camera, she recurred on "WeCrashed" (Apple) and "Get Even" (Netflix). Other TV credits include "And Just Like That" (HBO), "The Blacklist" (NBC), "The Other Two" (Comedy Central), "Bonding" (Netflix), "Trevor Moore: High in Church" (Comedy Central).

Fred Carl (Creative Dramaturge) is an Associate Arts Professor in the NYU/Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and is also the Co-Associate Dean of Faculty at the Tisch School of the Arts. As a composer, work includes jazz theatre collaborations with writer hattie gossett, include pussy and cash; in the waitingroom of the 21st century; and the immigrant suite: hey zenophobe who you calling a foreigner? (New School, The Public Theater, the Whitney Museum, Here Arts Center, the Tribeca Performing Arts Center, the Vision Festival and the National Black Arts Festival), and the score of Becoming Ailey, a multi-media piece for the 60th anniversary season of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. As a musical director: Kirsten Childs's The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (Dixon Place, Musical Theatre Works, Eugene O'Neill Musical Theater Conference, Playwrights Horizons-2000 Audelco Award for Best Musical Direction). In 2012 Fred musical directed, arranged and orchestrated the score for the 10th anniversary revised version of Regina Taylor's piece, Crowns, at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. Between 1999 and 2017 he co-designed and co-led a summer musical theatre-writing workshop at London's Theatre Royal Stratford East training hip-hop and contemporary music and word artists to write for the musical theatre stage (also featured in the 2005 BBC Channel Four documentary, Rappin' at the Royal). Between 2018 and 2022 Fred co-led musical theatre writing workshops in the UK and Nairobi, Kenya, encouraging more people from more places to create more stories for the musical theater stage.

Michael "Silk" Olajide Jr. (Special Boxing Consultant and Fight Coordinator) was trained by Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali's World Champion trainer, and was a professional boxer from 1981 to 1991. In that time, he was Canadian Middleweight Champion in 1984, World Athletic Association Champion in 1985, World Boxing Council Intercontinental Champion in 1986, and #1 World Middleweight Contender in 1987. In 1991, he created Equinox Fitness Club's and the world's first boxing fitness program. Shape Magazine rated his "Aerobox" video the #6 greatest workout video of all time. He is the author of the book, Aerobox High Performance, and he opened the world's first Boxing Fitness Club, Aerospace High Performance Center, in 2004. Silk's Off-Broadway credits include choreographer for Blade to the Heat starring Paul Calderon, directed by George C. Wolfe at The Public Theater in 1995. He was Boxing Consultant for Michael Mann's film, ALI, starring Will Smith in 2001. He has trained such artists as Hugh Jackman, Iman, Rachel Weiss, Q-tip, Mary J. Blige, Beyonce, Harvey Keitel, Dustin Hoffman, Josh Hartnett, and many more. Silk was the Fight Choreographer for Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia in 2006, the trainer for Ray Fisher for the play, Fetch Clay, Make Man in 2013, for Jake Gyllenhaal for the Southpaw boxing movie in 2015, for Liev Schreiber for the 2017 boxing film, Chuck, and for Adrienne Warren for her Tony Award-winning role as Tina Turner on Broadway.

Richard Willis (Producer) is a Tony Award-winner and five-time nominee, as well as an Ovation Award winner (Best Play Large Theatre) and was the recipient of the NAACP Award for Best Producer (Equity) in partnership with The Pasadena Playhouse. Some of his more notable shows include: Lanford Wilson's Burn This; Jerusalem; War Horse; One Man, Two Guvnors; Next Fall; 33 Variations; Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys; Howard Davies' production of Noel Coward's Hay Fever (additionally celebrated for being the first Noel Coward Play ever produced at the Noel Coward Theatre); Priscilla Queen of the Desert; Souvenir; Golda's Balcony; Eve Ensler's The Good Body; Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam and more. Richard was the Founder and visionary of the "Westside Arts Complex," built, programmed and operated by him, his business partner (the late Marty Markinson) and their team under the banner RICHMARK Entertainment in Brentwood, CA. The Westside Arts Complex consisted of The Wadsworth Theatre, The Brentwood Theatre, The Great Lawn and more, located at The Department of Veterans' Affairs' Campus from 1999-2016.

Brook T. Smith (Producer) is a successful businessman and philanthropist who was born, raised and resides in Louisville, KY. After growing up in Louisville and graduating from Clemson University, Brook returned to the Bluegrass to build a successful business career, leading his agency, Smith Manus, to become one of the nation's top performing brokers in surety bonds. In 2014, Smith Manus was an early acquisition of global fintech leader Acrisure, who continues to be the fastest growing and most profitable brokerage in industry history. Smith, with partners, also founded the Lexon Insurance Group, a surety underwriter that grew into a top 10 U.S. surety before selling to Japanese conglomerate Sompo in 2018. Through private investing, Brook's RSLP Ventures is funding visionaries across numerous industries who are socially and environmentally minded. Brook's love for business is only rivaled by his deep respect and admiration for those who are working to help others - he supports a multitude of non-profits and co-created the Appalachian Impact Fund.

David & Michelle Campbell (Producers) of Old Hickory, TN were Cofounders with Brook T. Smith and a Louisville based Venture firm of Lexon Surety Group, one of the Top Ten Surety Insurance Companies in the United States. The Campbells have supported both Special Olympics and the Prader Willi Syndrome Association, with both David and Michelle serving as Co-Presidents of the TN Prader Willi Association. In partnership with Purdue University and the state of Indiana, the Campbells have provided seed funding to Purdue based obesity research. The Campbell's other Entertainment Ventures include David being an Executive Producer of the current SXSW Audience Award film, The Long Game, investment in the film Canary Black and financial structuring of the preproduction project, Enough, with Mascot Camp Studio.

TheTribecaWorkshop (Producer), led by Richard Willis, joins together artists and their supporters to develop and produce new and newly re-imagined plays and musicals for Broadway and the West End.