BWW Previews: MOTHER OF GOD at Atlanta Musical Theatre Festival

The creative team of Christian Albright and Christian Magby started wondering what happened to Mary before and after Jesus's birth. It is something that the Bible does not go into detail and so they pondered what type of narrative she might have, and that is exactly how MOTHER OF GOD came to be.

The musical, with book and lyrics by Albright and a score by Magby, uses the Bible as the foundation of the show with a completely inspiring story on Mary's perspective of the events. The creators give the story life where there is little information given, and creates a world of possibilities.

The show will be presented as a selection in this year's Atlanta Musical Theatre Festival on August 1. To get everyone excited about this upcoming selection, here is a little more information from Christian and Christian.

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JCA: What inspired you to create this show? Was there just one moment that made it click for you or was it an evolution over time?

We all immediately saw the desire to shed light on this absent story. As artists who believe in God, we could relate to the fact that the story of Jesus doesn't go in depth on the trials and tribulations that Mary had to go through being his mother. We wanted to take everything we could from the Bible and give life to Mary's purpose as being the mother of God, with the hopes that this inspired tale would inhibit new thoughts as well as engage the audience in a perspective that may not have crossed their minds before. The idea for this show pretty much clicked as soon as it came up in our conversations for our next musical project.

JCA: Tell us about your reaction to being selected for this festival.

We were soooo excited! We have been working on this show for three years, and from many read throughs and workshops, we finally developed a script worth submitting. Being selected made us feel like we were moving in a great direction as artistic developers, with hopes of continuing to better our crafts and ourselves.

JCA: Give us an idea of what the Atlanta community can expect to see from you after AMTF.

We will definitely be continuing to develop Mother of God for a main stage production. We also have many other projects in our repertoire that will hopefully be making headlines in the future!

JCA: And just for fun, what is your favorite musical currently on Broadway?

We can collectively agree on "Dear Evan Hansen!"

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MOTHER OF GOD will debut at Out Front Theatre Company on August 1 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 per seat and can be purchased online.

The direction of the show will be by Jade Lambert-Smith. The cast will include Diany Rodriguez (Mary), Eugene H. Russell, IV (Joseph), Bradley Candie (King Herod), Marcie Millard (Anne), and Darryn Ray (Joachim). The ensemble will include Nathan Andreasen, Justine Beauchamp, Jared Brodie, Lyndsay Brown, Quentin Avery Brown, Skyler Brown, Bianca Capri, Telvin Carter, Gordon T. Danniels, Mionne Destiny, Benjamin Fierke, Ziara Greene, Eileen Howard, Jontavious Johnson, Avani Lesane, Bryan Montemayor, Kevin O'Hara, Brooke Owens, Kyla Quiñones, Lilliangina Quiñones, Laura Spears, Angelica Spence, David Sterritt and India S. Tyree.

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