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:
"Beautiful. An excellent and moving new musical." --Jesse Oxfeld, New York Observer
"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).
