New Musical RANKED Gets Workshop At The Daryl Roth Theatre, 3/20

The new musical Ranked (www.RankedMusical.com) with book by Kyle Holmes and music and lyrics by David Taylor Gomeswill have industry workshops on Friday, March 20 at 12pm and 4pm at The Daryl Roth Theatre (101 E. 15th Street).

Ranked is set in a dystopian world where your class rank, determined by grades and test scores, governs everything from where you sit to what your future holds.

Lily is Above the Average, barely. Soon the giant, and very public, academic leaderboards will update everyone's class rank, and for another day, everyone will know their place. If you fall Below the Average - say goodbye to college, and pretty much everything else. Below the Average students are nothing more than social outcasts, not worth anyone's time. In the face of an intense and perverse culture of performance, Lily must find her place in the status quo as she watches friends and enemies alike destroy themselves and each other to score their way to the top.

When an impossible lie is discovered, the fate of these students' futures hangs in the balance. Ranked asks - what are you worth? Who decides? And what do you do when it all comes crashing down.

Both Holmes and Gomes work in the Sacramento school system. Their musical premiered in California weeks after the college admissions scandal that saw several high-profile celebrities indicted after lying or paying bribes to universities to gain entrance for their children. Ranked moves the story to a dystopian world where publicized academic excellence defines each student's worth, resulting in extreme competition.

Directed by Mindy Cooper (Broadway: Dracula, Wrong Mountain; 50 Shades The Musical Parody), Ranked features Amy Button (National Tour - The Wizard of Oz), Shelby Wulfert (The Disney Channel's "Liv and Maddie"), Bryan George Rowell (Addy and Uno), Alexandra Starr Bazen (Pip's Island), Kalonjee Gallimore (All Shook Up), Jennifer Posie Morrison (Beach Blanket Babylon), Kayla Coleman (Hairspray), Cindy Tsai (Hair at the Hollywood Bowl), Ben Milan-Polisar (Wallenberg), Talia Friedenberg (Fat Kid Rules The World), Anvita Gattani (Jesus Christ Superstar), Chloe Boyan (The Unfortunates), Emily Anne Goes (Cabaret), Malcolm Durning (Wizard of Oz), and Charlie Lavaroni (Fat Kid Rules The World).

The concept album of Ranked was released on February 28, 2020 and is available through Spotify and Apple Music. All Streams and purchases of Ranked, A Musical Concept Album will be donated to The Sugarloaf Station Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to increasing access and opportunity for arts education.

BreakThru Films is also filming a documentary about the making of the musical Ranked in association with HBO that will be completed in 2020 for a festival premiere followed by a broadcast date in 2021. The presentations on March 20 will be filmed for the documentary.

"Working in high schools every day, talking with our students, hearing their experiences - we knew this was a powerful story that wasn't being told," said Kyle Holmes and David Taylor Gomes in a joint statement. "We asked them to help us tell it. Our desire in writing Ranked was to create something meaningful for young people and those who love them. We never imagined it would resonate so strongly across the country."

Presented by Peytoven Productions LLC, Ranked has musical direction by Daniel Green, casting by Stephanie Klapper Casting, and is general managed by Daryl Roth Theatrical Management.

Seating is limited; please contact RankedRSVP@gmail.com for availability and information.

To post a comment, you must register and login.