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ROCK OF AGES Director Kristin Hanggi Helms Pasadena Playhouse's THE FUTURE PERFECT Readings, Beg. Tonight

By: Jun. 25, 2013
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The Pasadena Playhouse's final presentation of its 2012 - 2013 HOTHOUSE at The Playhouse series is THE FUTURE PERFECT. Book by Jonathan Caren, music & lyrics by Emmy Award-winning composer and songwriter Ben Decter, directed by Tony Award nominated (for Rock of Ages) Kristin Hanggi with musical direction by Kyle Puccia. The staged reading will take place tonight, June 25, and Wednesday, June 26, 2013, at 8:00 p.m. in the Carrie Hamilton Theatre at The Pasadena Playhouse.

"This project is a labor of love for us...and something we've enjoyed developing from the ground up," said director Kristin Hanggi. "I've always thought of this musical as John Lennon's quote - 'Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.' I'm really interested in exploring all the optimism of youth & our dreams, and how life grows us by the events that happen along the way."

Added composer and lyricist Ben Decter, "After several aborted attempts at exploring the early years of being a Dad through words alone, I finally turned to songwriting. It just so happened that Kristin Hanggi was given a CD, and thus began the deep development process. Kristin promised on day one that this would be a long, challenging journey. Yet, we keep moving forward, onward, and upward and that's actually what this story is about. It's amazing how our show, and all of us, have grown through the process - especially the little girl who was the original inspiration for this story."

THE FUTURE PERFECT is a story about a singer and his band on the verge of their dreams, but behind the scenes his family is falling apart. While the band deals with their newfound fame, Daniel is dealing with his newfound daughter and her ensuing medical crisis, which will require more love than he ever imagined. In THE FUTURE PERFECT, we follow a young man's struggle to accept a different vision of himself, his daughter and the future. It's a musical about going for your dreams, and being surprised by what you find along the way...

The cast for THE FUTURE PERFECT has yet to be announced. Casting director, Michael Donovan, CSA (Michael Donovan Casting) will facilitate the process. Please contact his office for any casting inquiries.

"With Sleepless in Seattle - The Musical, a HOTHOUSE grown World Premiere musical closing a smashingly successful 2012-13 Season on our Mainstage and proving we are truly "Better Than Ever!" at The Pasadena Playhouse, what better finale for our 2012-13 HOTHOUSE Season than another original musical with THE FUTURE PERFECT? Like Sleepless in Seattle - The Musical, THE FUTURE PERFECT finds its roots in a love story we think we all know, and we expect to play out in a certain way. However, nothing is ever the way one expects when it comes to love - or art." said HOTHOUSE producer and Playhouse Artistic Associate, Courtney Harper. "This 2012-13 season of HOTHOUSE has been more than exciting. We've seen fantastic authors and actors returning to us with new work after previous pieces grown in HOTHOUSE have moved forward. Much of their work has had life on our Mainstage, gone on to Tony-nominated Broadway productions, and on national tour. For example, we'll be seeing our June 2012 HOTHOUSE grown play Above the Fold by Bernard Weinraub, Directed by Steven Robman, on our Mainstage as part of our 2013-2014 Mainstage Season in January/February of 2014. The journey of pieces like Above the Fold show our HOTHOUSE series continues to sustain the pattern of successfully growing new work and subsequently producing a very high percentage on our Mainstage and beyond. We could not be more thrilled with the progress and continued development of this vital program."

Reservations for HOTHOUSE at The Playhouse staged readings may be made online at http://www.pasadenaplayhouse.org/outreach-and-education/hothouse.html or by calling The Pasadena Playhouse box office at 626-356-7529.

HOTHOUSE at The Playhouse cultivates writers, actors, and directors of all backgrounds through new play development. HOTHOUSE at The Playhouse leads the way in new play development by helping emerging and established playwrights grow their stories to the next level toward full production. Several of The Playhouse's most successful Mainstage productions have emerged from the HOTHOUSE program, enjoying long production runs subsequent to Playhouse premieres, such as the following: Sleepless in Seattle - The Musical; One November Yankee; the Tony-nominated Sister Act - The Musical, Looped, and the upcoming Broadway production of Can-Can by David Lee. MFA students from nearby universities participate in this program through special sessions with the playwrights. HOTHOUSE at The Playhouse is made possible in part by the support of the Wells Fargo Theatrical Diversity Project.

Kristin Hanggi directed the smash-hit Rock of Ages, which was nominated for five Tony Awards including Best Direction of a Musical. She has directed the productions on Broadway, the West End, Australia, Toronto, Las Vegas, and two National Tours. Ms. Hanggi's other productions include acclaimed pop opera bare which performed to sold-out audiences in Los Angeles and Off-Broadway, for which she received the Ovation Award for Best Musical, LA Weekly Award for Best Musical, and Robby Award for Best Director. Ms. Hanggi also directed the initial production that launched the Pussycat Dolls, Pussycat Dolls Live at the Roxy with Christina Applegate, Carmen Electra, and special guests Gwen Stefani, Christina Aguilera, Brittany Murphy, Nikka Costa, and Charlize Theron. Other stage productions include: And the Curtain Rises at the Signature Theater; winner of the New York's Fringe Festival, Catch The Fish; Twelfth Premise (LA Times Critics Choice); the Los Angeles Premiere of Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi (2001 Ticketholder Award, Best Production; 2001 Ticketholder Award, Best Director; 2001 Robby Award, Best Director of a Play); Crane, Mississippi (LA Times Critic's Choice, BackStage West Critic's Pick); the New York and Los Angeles productions of the underground cult-hit Ann E. Wrecksick and the Odyssey of the Bulimic Orphans. Kristin just finished directing the musical movie Dear Dumb Diary that she also co-wrote, based on the best-selling book series for Walden Media. Ms. Hanggi graduated with her Masters from USC after receiving her Bachelors from UCLA in Theater.

Jonathan Caren: Plays include The Recommendation (The Old Globe, '12 Craig Noel Outstanding Play, upcoming: The Flea Sept '13), The Morning the Sun Fell Down (MTC 2013 7@7), The Venerable Raman Gupta (Sundance Lab '13 Finalist), Open Heart Meditation (Ars Nova Out Loud '11), and Catch the Fish (NY Fringe, Outstanding Play). 2011-12 Dramatist Guild Fellow, 2011 New York Stage And Film Founder's Award, T.S Eliot Old Vic/New Voices Network member, SPACE @ Ryder Farm fellow, two-time Lecomte du Nouy award winner. Jonathan graduated from the The Juilliard School and Vassar College where he studied mythology and religion.

Ben Decter: Ben Decter is an Emmy Award-winning composer and songwriter who has created a diverse body of music for television, theater, film and commercials. Ben's Emmy resulted from his score for the Academy Award-nominated film Operation Homecoming. Ben also co-created the score to We Live in Public, the 2009 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner. This Fall, he will co-compose Jerry Bruckheimer's CBS drama, "Hostages." Another Big Day, Ben's much-loved children's CD (a collaboration with Dave Nachmanoff), received national recognition and critical praise. Ben has also recorded as Paley Jones and as one-half of Emalazarus, a folk-electronica duo. Born in Manhattan, and raised in New Jersey, Ben graduated from Harvard University, where he majored in political science. Ben resides in Los Angeles, CA with his wife, two children, and a menagerie of 4-legged critters.

Kyle Puccia: Kyle earned his BFA in Musical Theatre at SUNY Fredonia College. He is a Billboard charting recording artist, Billboard charting songwriter, award-winning composer, celebrity vocal coach, music-director and vocal arranger/producer. Kyle music-directed and created vocal arrangements for all workshop productions of Broadway's 80s rock musical, Rock of Ages. As a writer and composer, Kyle's music has been featured on TV and in film and he's scored several indie feature films and shorts.



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