New Musical Featuring Stars of Tomorrow in NYC Premiere!

An exciting new musical, Broadway to Beijing - Here I Am, celebrated its premiere this past Saturday, evening at The International Careers Theater at The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School.  A teen-themed show, Broadway to Beijing deals with the issues faced by youngsters coming of age in the 21^st Century.  With the exception of the finale (Sondheim's "Our Time"), all of the songs in the show are brand new compositions, written by Broadway's next generation of composers, including Scott Alan, Joe Iconis, Kathy Lombardi, Ryan Scott Oliver, Matt Schatz, Jonathan Reid Gealt, and songwriting teams Benj Pasek & Justin Paul, Michael Kooman & Christopher Dimond, and Kate Kerrigan & Brian Lowdermilk.  The cast is made up of 10 students from some of NYC's top performing arts high schools:  Aissatu Young (Talent Unlimited), Alex Evans Getlin (La Guardia), Alex Swift (PPAS),  Casey Wenger Schulman (PPAS), Christina Franklin (PPAS), Maya Park (La Guardia), Kalina Gaspar (La Guardia), Pasquale Piccinonno (PPAS), Adam Mandala (PPAS), and Mary Claire Miskell (PPAS).  The show is created and directed by Marc Tumminelli (The Broadway Workshop) and features musical direction by David Caldwell (Forbidden Broadway). 

Saturday evening's performance was a benefit to raise money for The Beijing Project, a wonderful project which began as an attempt to establish a relationship between the Professional Performing Arts Public High School in NYC and its counterpart in Beijing, and has since grown tremendously under the guidance of its director, Alan Schulman.  The money raised from the performance will be used to help develop the Beijing Project's efforts to link 30 NYC middle schools and high schools to partner schools in Beijing, Shanghai and Suzhou, China; the writing of 2 new survey courses for schools on the "new" China/Asia of the 21^st Century; and linking 5 of NYC's finest performing arts public high schools (PPAS, Talent Unlimited, Public School Repertory, The Frank Sinatra School for the Arts, and La Guardia High School) to the expanding world and influence of live contemporary Chinese and Asian Theater.

To learn more about the Beijing Project, please visit www.beijingproject.org. 

Pictured: The Cast of Here I Am

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