La Jolla Playhouse Announces Cast, Creative Team for 'Chasing the Song'

La Jolla Playhouse announces the cast and creative team earlier this month for its Page To Stage workshop production of Chasing the Song, a jubilant new musical by the team behind the Tony Award-winning musical Memphis, featuring book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro, music and lyrics by David Bryan and directed by Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley. Kicking off the Playhouse’s 2014/15 season, Chasing the Song runs May 13 to June 15 in the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre. Tickets are available by calling the Patron Services Department at 858-550-1010 or online at LaJollaPlayhouse.org.

“Our Page To Stage process is a gift to creative teams; we get the opportunity to continue Chasing the Song’s development in front of, and with the invaluable assistance of, a live audience,” said Ashley. “Joe and David’s latest musical focuses on a fascinating chapter in rock ‘n’ roll – and American – history, and this knock-out cast and creative team of Playhouse veterans and newcomers bring it to vivid life.”

The cast features: Stephen Lee Anderson (Broadway’s Spider-Man, Wicked) as “Oliver,” Nick Blaemire (Playhouse’s Cry-Baby,Broadway’s Godspell) as “Jesse,” UC San Diego M.F.A. candidate Kim Yu Blanck (Without Walls Festival production ofCornerstone) as “Doreen,” UC San Diego M.F.A. candidate Hannah Corrigan as “Satin,” Julie Johnson (Broadway’s Candide) as “Edie,” Jay Klaitz (2013 DNA New Work Series presentation of Chasing the Song) as “Fatman Freddie,” Morgan Marcell (In the Heights national tour) as “Frances Eden,” DeQuina Moore (Broadway’s Little Shop of Horrors) as “Cheryl,” Chloe Tucker (Mamma Mia! national tour) as “Ginny” and Jim Walton (Broadway’s Merrily We Roll Along, The Mystery of Edwin Drood) as “Stan,” along with Jeremy Sevelovitz, Ben Moss, Zach Fineblum and Patrick Dillon Curry as the “Songwriters” and Sidney Franklin(Playhouse’s The Car Plays: San Diego, Our Town), Marco Ramos, Jake Weinstein and Jonny Wexler (Playhouse’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots) as ensemble members.

The creative team includes Sergio Trujillo (Memphis, The Wiz, Jersey Boys), Choreographer; Michael Gacetta, Music Director; Playhouse Resident Artist Robert Brill (His Girl Friday, Sideways, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots), Scenic Designer; 2014 Playhouse Gala Honoree Paul Tazewell (His Girl Friday, Side Show, Sideways), Costume Designer; Howell Binkley (Memphis,Xanadu, Jersey Boys), Lighting Designer; Steve Canyon Kennedy (Hands on a Hardbody, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots), Sound Designer and Shirley Fishman, Playhouse Resident Dramaturg.

The creators of the Tony Award-winning musical Memphis follow the evolving American music scene into the early 1960s in this rock ‘n’ roll-inspired new musical. Elegant Edie’s team of hit-makers is upended by the arrival of the newest aspiring songwriter — Edie’s daughter Ginny. As Ginny strives to earn her place in the male-dominated world of songwriting, American rock ‘n’ roll finds itself under siege from the incoming British Invasion.

Launched in 2001, La Jolla Playhouse’s Page To Stage Play Development Program is designed to facilitate the development of new plays and musicals in a workshop production. 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, audience talkback sessions provide insights for the creative team. Previous Page To Stage productions include The Nightingale, John Leguizamo’s Diary of a Madman, Peter and the Starcatchers, The Night Watcher, The Farnsworth Invention, Zhivago, the Tony Award-winning 700 Sundays and I Am My Own Wife, which went on to receive a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

—La Jolla Playhouse