Will Roland, Arielle Jacobs, and More Featured On AMERICAN MORNING Studio Cast Recording

Kate Hall & Gary Lynch and The Lisa Cleff Kurtz and Michael Kurtz Foundation, in association with Less Than Rent Theatre, will release the studio cast recording of American Morning, with book, music and lyrics by Timothy Huang.

The album, produced by Alexander Sage Oyen and Timothy Huang, will be released on Friday June 19th on Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify and other digital platforms.

It will feature Josh Dela Cruz (Aladdin, Blues Clues), Raymond J. Lee (Once Upon a One More Time, Groundhog Day), Arielle Jacobs (Aladdin, Between the Lines), Andrew Cristi (Moby Dick, Miss You Like Hell), Troy Iwata (Be More Chill), Will Roland (Be More Chill, Dear Evan Hansen), Allie Trim (Once Upon a One More Time, 13), Thom Sesma (Unknown Soldier, Sweeney Todd), Jason SweetTooth Williams (Be More Chill, Freaky Friday), and Isabel Santiago (Giant, In the Heights).

The album, with orchestrations by Oyen, also features the ensemble voices of Matthew Acevedo, Kerstin Anderson, Jack Bowman, Anika Braganza, Hunter Brown, Christiana Cole, Austin Davidson, Lauren Echausse, Rachel Franco, Diana Huey, Samantha Messina, Aaron Phillips, Alexander Sage Oyen, A.J. Shively, RJ Vaillancourt, Elanna White, and Noah Zachary.

Inspired by the New York Times article Night and Day by Corey Kilgannon, American Morning tells the story of two immigrant cab drivers taking opposite shifts off the same medallion. The two men's fates become intertwined as forced competition and marginalization drives a wedge between them that culminates in a desperate act, leaving one man dead and the other disfigured.

American Morning received a workshop production at Prospect Theater Company in 2019, co-produced by Kenny and Marleen Alhadeff, Kate Hall & Gary Lynch, and The Lisa Cleff Kurtz and Michael Kurtz Foundation, and directed/choreographed by Marlo Hunter, with music direction by Julianne B. Merrill. It was previously workshopped at Playwrights Horizons (as Costs of Living), the Village Theater's 2016 Festival of New Musicals, the NAMT 2015 Festival of New Musicals, the 2012 Lehman Engel Musical Theater Lab Master Class moderated by Stephen Sondheim, the 2011 ASCAP Musical Theater Workshop and the New York Theatre Barn.

Timothy Huang is a finalist for the 2020 NYMF Artist Fellowship and the recipient of a 2019 NYSC/NYFA Grant in Screenwriting/Playwriting, the 2016 Richard Rodgers Award, the 2015 B-Side New American Musical Award, a 2013 Jerry Harrington Award, and the composer/lyricist/librettist of the short musicals Missing Karma (Samuel French OOB SPF finalist), A Relative Relationship (Best Musical, 2013 SoundBITES festival), Koi Story (2018 Samuel French OOB SPF Finalist) and The View From Here.

Less Than Rent creates dynamic and dangerous theatre where the energy is explosive, and the volume is turned all the way up. Whether it's with a new work from a fresh voice, a remix of a classic, or a devised piece by our ensemble, their goal is to skew the canon, exploring universal themes and familiar ideas in a way that's jolting and in-your-face. Their work has been seen at the 59E59, New Ohio, HERE Arts Center, La Mama, Walkerspace, Wild Project, and Horse Trade Theater Group. In addition to multiple FringeNYC and United Solo awards and NYIT nominations, they were named Indie Theater Now's "People of the Year" in 2013.