Transport Group Extends SEE ROCK CITY & OTHER DESTINATIONS Thru 8/14
By: Gabrielle Sierra Jul. 29, 2010
Transport Group (TG), the winner of a special 2007 Drama Desk Award and 2007 and 2010 OBIE Awards, has announced that its production of the New York premiere of See Rock City & Other Destinations, music by Brad Alexander; book and lyrics by Adam Mathias; directed by Artistic Director Jack Cummings III, will extend one week through Saturday, August 14 at The Duke on 42nd Street, a New 42nd Street® project, 229 West 42nd Street.
See Rock City & Other Destinations is a contemporary pop-rock musical road trip that ventures to tourist destinations across America, mapping out stories of sightseers in search of fellow travelers: a wanderer believes his destiny is written on rooftops along the North Carolina interstate; a young man yearns to connect with intelligent life in Roswell, New Mexico; a woman at the Alamo steps out of the shadow of her past to take a chance on love; estranged sisters cruise to Glacier Bay to scatter their father's ashes; high school boys face unexpected fears in a Coney Island spook house; and a terrified bride-to-be ponders taking the leap...over Niagara Falls. See Rock City & Other Destinations creates a vivid travelogue of moving characters and connections missed and made along the way.
See Rock City & Other Destinations opened Sunday, July 25 to excellent notices:
"The musical, exquisitely directed by Jack Cummings III, has one of the most intriguing pre-show environments of recent memory. Even more marvelously, the artistry displayed before the show starts never flags, creating a remarkable-and moving-theatrical experience. Brad Alexander's score proves incredibly diverse...Equally impressive are Adam Mathias' lyrics, which contain clever and unexpected rhymes and which brim with deeply felt emotion and often hilarious jokes. The ensemble, who work tirelessly throughout, deliver powerfully, and the fact that their vocals are unamplified only adds to the immediacy and intimacy of the production." --Andy Propst, TheaterMania
"An engrossing new musical. The effect is similar to driving on a road trip with the windows down, miles of highway stretching in front of you while the radio blares." --Mark Peikert, New York Press
"Director Jack Cummings III has assembled a strong cast and provided consistently imaginative staging. The songs are at once interesting, atmospheric and functional, with a tendency to get under the skin of the characters and express what they are unable to formulate in speech." --Steven Suskin, Variety
"An enjoyable, light musical jaunt. Delightfully performed by the talented cast." --Jennifer Farrar, Associated Press
"Jack Cummings III delivers an innovative environmental production, and the seven-member cast limns its multiple roles with urgency and wit." -- David Sheward, Back Stage
"Beguiling. These fresh stories are linked by the consistent excellence of Mathias' agile, perceptive lyrics and the sometimes gentle, sometimes fervent, but always appealing quality of Alexander's music. Director Jack Cummings III moves his performers dynamically among the audience while making clever use of the expansive theater space." -- Michael Sommers, New Jersey News Room
Winner of the 2008 Richard Rodgers Award and the 2007 Jerry Bock Award, See Rock City & Other Destinations received a development workshop with Transport Group in 2009. The musical received its world premiere at the Barrington Stage Company in 2008.
The cast includes Stanley Bahorek (Broadway's Big River, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee); Donna Lynne Champlin (Broadway's Billy Elliot, Sweeney Todd, OBIE Award winner for TG's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs); Jonathan Hammond (Broadway's Ragtime, OBIE Award winner and Drama League Award nominee for TG's The Boys in the Band); Ryan Hilliard (Off-Broadway's Grey Gardens, Godspell); Mamie Parris (Ragtime, The Drowsy Chaperone); Bryce Ryness (Drama Desk Award nominee for Broadway's HAIR, TG's Crossing Brooklyn); and Sally Wilfert (Make Me a Song, Broadway's Assassins).
Brad Alexander (music) wrote the music for Theatreworks USA's Click Clack Moo (dir. John Rando), Just So Stories, as well as songs for If You Give A Pig A Pancake and the upcoming We The People and Duck For President. He and Adam Mathias won the 2008 Richard Rodgers Award and 2007 Jerry Bock Award for See Rock City & Other Destinations. Brad's music has been featured on VH1, Showtime and Sony Records. "Sugar and Spring," a song he co-wrote with EdibleRed, is the first release off the band's debut CD, Welcome To My Bad Behavior on Select Records. Brad is a member of The BMI Workshop, National Academy of Popular Music, National Alliance for Musical Theatre, and The Dramatists Guild of America. www.bradalexander.com
Adam Mathias (book and lyrics) won the Richard Rodgers Award and Jerry Bock Award in collaboration with Brad Alexander for See Rock City & Other Destinations. He conceived and co-wrote The Passion of George W. Bush (2004 NY Fringe Festival; Joe's Pub) and is currently co-writing book for The Dirty Hippie Jam Band Project. His work has been performed in New York at The American Airlines Theatre (Broadway), Birdland, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre Festival, Merkin Hall, The Triad, The Duplex, The Laurie Beechman, Don't Tell Mama, The Canal Room and Prospect Theater Company by artists including Anthony Rapp, Sarah Ramirez, Gavin Creel, Christian Borle, Mary Testa, Michael Arden, Hunter Foster and Malcolm Gets. Recent and upcoming projects include a four-actor adaptation of Hamlet for Bakerloo Theatre Project and a musical reimagining of Calderon de la Barca's Life is a Dream with composer Oran Eldor. Adam is a graduate of The Theatre School at DePaul University and NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and is a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Writing Workshop (2005 Jerry Harrington Award). www.adamup.com
The set and costume design for See Rock City & Other Destinations is by Dane Laffrey (Drama Desk Award nominee for lighting design for TG's The Boys in the Band); lighting design is by R. Lee Kennedy (two-time Drama Desk Award nominee for TG's The Audience, Bury the Dead); orchestrations and music direction are by Justin Hatchimonji; casting is by Alan Filderman; production stage manager is Theresa Flanagan; production manager is Wendy Patten.
Founded in 2001, Transport Group, under the leadership of Jack Cummings III, Artistic Director, and Lori Fineman, Executive Director, is a not-for-profit theatre company that develops and produces work by American Playwrights and composers with the aim of exploring the American consciousness in the 20th and 21st centuries. Transport Group is the winner of a special 2007 Drama Desk Award for its "breadth of vision and its presentation of challenging productions." Transport Group presented its premiere production in 2002: Thornton Wilder's Our Town, which featured older actors in the roles of Emily and George and a twelve-year-old girl as the Stage Manager. Its second production, Requiem for William, an evening of seven seldom produced plays by William Inge, that featured a cast of 26 as well as original songs, premiered in 2003. In 2004 the company presented the first New York revival of Michael John LaChiusa's First Lady Suite, which received rave reviews, played to sold-out houses, and earned two Drama Desk Award nominations including outstanding revival of a musical. Recent productions include the world premiere of the musical The Audience, which featured a cast of 46 actors and earned three Drama Desk Award nominations, including outstanding musical; Normal, a new musical about a mother's battle to save her daughter from anorexia; cul-de-sac, a new play by Tony Award nominee John Cariani; the first New York revival of Tad Mosel's Pulitzer Prize play, All the Way Home; the 50th anniversary, Obie-winning production of William Inge's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, the world premiere musicals Crossing Brooklyn, Marcy in the Galaxy, and Being Audrey, and the first New York revival of Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead. Both First Lady Suite and Bury the Dead were filmed for the New York Performing Arts Library's Theatre on Film and Tape Archive. Transport Group recently presented a sold-out, extended engagement of Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band, which was nominated for five 2010 Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Revival of a Play-the most for an off-Broadway play.
See Rock City & Other Destinations plays Tuesday through Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 2pm and 8pm; and Sunday at 3pm and 7pm through August 8. Beginning August 10, the schedule is
Tuesday through Saturday at 8pm; Wednesday and Saturday through 2pm. See Rock City & Other Destinations plays at The Duke on 42nd Street, a New 42nd Street® project, 229 West 42nd Street. Tickets, which are $48, are available at www.Dukeon42.org or by phoning The Duke on 42nd Street box office at 646-223-3010. Online box office is available 24 hours; regular box office hours at The Duke on 42nd Street are: Tuesday-Friday 4pm-7pm; Saturday 12pm-6pm. On performance days the box office is open Tuesday-Saturday 4pm till performance time, Sunday 12pm till performance time. For more information about Transport Group and See Rock City & Other Destinations, visit www.transportgroup.org.
About the organization: The New 42nd Street
Founded in 1990, The New 42nd Street is an independent, nonprofit organization charged with long-term responsibility for seven historic theaters on 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. In addition to running The New Victory, The New 42nd Street built and operates the New 42nd Street® Studios - a ten-story building of rehearsal studios, offices and a 199-seat theater named The Duke on 42nd Street - for national and international performing arts companies. Since its opening on June 21, 2000, the New 42nd Street® Studios has been fully occupied by both nonprofit and commercial theater, dance and opera companies. With these institutions and the other properties under its guardianship, The New 42nd Street plays a pivotal role in fostering the continued revival of this famous street at the Crossroads of the World.
About the theater: The Duke on 42nd Street
The Duke on 42nd Street is an intimate 200-seat black box theater built and operated by The New 42nd Street. Since opening in 2000, the theater has been available to international and domestic nonprofit organizations to present their work. Companies that have presented at The Duke on 42nd StreetSM theater include: 92nd Street Y's Harkness Dance Project; The NYC Tap Festival; Rosie's Broadway Kids; Playwrights Horizons; London's National Theatre; Theatre for a New Audience, which continues to present work on a regular basis; Lincoln Center Theater's LCT3, which is entering into its third season, and The New 42nd Street's "New Victory at The Duke" series. Companies presented by The New 42nd Street have included: Karole Armitage; Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Naked Angels; The Classical Theatre of Harlem; and Steppenwolf Theater Company.
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