Transport Group (TG), the winner of a special 2007 Drama Desk Award and 2007 and 2010 OBIE Awards, will present 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 (two-time Drama Desk Award nominee for Outstanding Director for TG's The Audience and The Boys in the Band), beginning Saturday, July 17, and opening Sunday, July 25, at 7pm 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.
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); 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); 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 at The Duke on 42nd Street, a New 42nd Street® project, 229 West 42nd Street. (The performance on Thursday, July 22 will begin at 7pm and includes a post-show gala reception as a benefit performance for Transport Group.) Tickets, which are $48, are available at www.transportgroup.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
