The Hayworth Theatre walls shook Friday night as glory|struck's musical reinvention, SPRING AWAKENING: IN CONCERT took to the stage and wowed a packed opening night audience. The trend continued throughout the production's first weekend, selling out every performance.
Producers Topher Rhys, Jamie Lee Barnard, and Nathan Gardner have aligned the production with LOVE IS LOUDER, a campaign started by The Jed Foundation, MTV, and Brittany Snow to support anyone feeling mistreated, misunderstood, or alone. Online, and in communities around the world, the movement is raising volume on a critical message: That love and support are more powerful than the external and internal voices that bring us down, cause us pain, and make us feel hopeless.
In attendance on Opening Night were Brittany Snow, and LOVE IS LOUDER's Director, Courtney Knowles.
"We are proud that this production of SPRING AWAKENING is promoting and benefiting the LOVE IS LOUDER movement," Mr. Knowles said. "So many of the musical's themes are relevant to the teenagers and young adults who power our movement."
This rock-infused presentation, helmed by director Kate Sullivan Gibbens, with musical direction by Michael Christopher Luebke, is a theatre-concert hybrid that focuses sharply on music and its story, recalling the energy of an East Village music bar as opposed to a traditional "uptown" venue. Audiences will be left with art in its purist, most unadulterated form: the music, the dialogue, and the message.
The cast includes Kelley Jakle (the upcoming movie PITCH PERFECT) Nathan Parrett (THE VOICE), Payson Lewis (THE SING OFF), Olivia Noelle, Anthony Starble, Caitlin Ary, Jonah Platt, Topher Rhys, Jamie Lee Barnard, Jilli Marine, Michael Christopher Luebke, Paul T. Brindley and Alissa-Nicole Koblentz.
SPRING AWAKENING will play three more performances in its limited engagement, closing on July 29, 2012.
Tickets, priced at $25.00, are available at http://www.springawakeninginconcert.com, or through Plays411 at http://www.plays411.net/awakening or by calling (323) 960-7780
More information is available at https://www.facebook.com/springawakeninginconcert.
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