La Jolla Playhouse Announces Cast and Creative Team for 'The Nightingale'

Hans Christian Andersen’s The Nightingale will come to life in La Jolla next month. The is putting on a musical loosely based on the children’s book with music by Grammy and Tony Award-winning  composer/musician Duncan Sheik, direction by Playhouse favorite Moisés Kaufman, and lyrics by Steven Sater. Sater is also the book writer and a Grammy and Tony Award-winner.

The La Jolla Playhouse announced the cast and creative team last week.

The Nightingale is part of the Playhouse’s Page To Stage Play Development Program, which "was designed to facilitate the development of new plays and musicals in a workshop production.” The Playhouse explained that Page To Stage productions offer audiences “the rare opportunity to experience the birth of a play and to take part in its evolution.” After each performance, the audience provides feedback to the creative team and the actors.

Previous Page To Stage productions include Peter and the Starcatchers, which transferred to Broadway earlier this year and won five Tony Awards, as well as John Leguizamo’s Diary of a Madman, The Night Watcher, The Farnsworth Invention, Zhivago, the Tony Award-winning Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays and I Am My Own Wife, which went on to receive the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The cast and creative team:

• Dan Knechtges, Choreographer
• Lon Hoyt, Music Director
• Derek McLane, Scenic Designer
• Susan Hilferty, Costume Designer
• David Lander, Lighting Designer
• Cricket S. Myers, Sound Designer
• Chris Green, Puppet Designer
• Gabriel Greene, Dramaturge
• Serra Mesa resident Nikki Castillo (How the Grinch Stole Christmas!) as “Nightingale”
• Obie Award winner Eisa Davis (Passing Strange, Angela’s Mixtape) as “Fisherwoman” 
• Matthew Patrick Davis (Playhouse’s Limelight, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) as “Lieutenant Eunuch” 
• Kimiko Glenn (Spring Awakening national tour) as “Princess Ssu-Ming”
• Acclaimed local actor Steve Gunderson (Playhouse’s Memphis) as “Chief Eunuch” 
• Jonathan Hammond (Broadway’s Ragtime) as the “Emperor” 
• Corbin Reid (Broadway’s Sister Act) as “Feiyan” 
• Aaron Serotsky (Off-Broadway’s The Blue Flower) as “Minister of State” 
• Bobby Steggert (Broadway revival of 110 in the Shade) as “Young Emperor”
• Tony Award nominee and Playhouse Gala honoree Charlayne Woodard (Playhouse’s The Night Watcher, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) as “Empress Dowager”
• Chelsea Diggs-Smith (Lamb’s Players Theatre’s Guys and Dolls) and UC San Diego M.F.A. student Zach Martens (Playhouse’s The Car Plays: San Diego) as ensemble members

The Nightingale runs July 10 through August 5 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m.; Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 7 p.m.; and matinees on Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. at the La Jolla Playhouse’s Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre, 2910 La Jolla Village Dr., La Jolla.

For ticket vist lajollaplayhouse.org/nightingale or call 858-550-1010.

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