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August Rush, the Academy Award and Grammy Award-nominated 2007 film, is being developed as a new Broadway musical. A workshop of August Rush: A New Musical, directed by three-time Tony Award winner Kathleen Marshall (Anything Goes, The Pajama Game), will be presented in New York City on Thursday December 11, and Friday, December 12 at Open Jar Studios.
Nick Blaemire (Safety Not Guaranteed, Space Dogs), has written the new book and contributed new songs to a score featuring music from the film’s platinum-selling soundtrack by Grammy-winning, Oscar and Tony-nominated composer Mark Mancina, John Legend, Chris Trapper and Luke Reynolds, along with new songs by Tony, Emmy, Grammy and Pulitzer Prize Winner Tom Kitt (Next to Normal, If/Then), Van Hughes (Space Dogs), John Ondrasik (Five for Fighting), and Bonnie McKee (Katy Perry’s collaborator on “Teenage Dream” and “Roar”). Kitt will also provide music supervision.
The film starred Freddie Highmore, Robin Williams, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and Terrance Howard. The film’s multiple platinum-selling soundtrack featured performances by John Legend and Van Morrison.
The story follows an orphaned 11-year-old musical prodigy who runs away from his foster home to New York to embark upon a music-driven journey to find his long-lost parents: his father, an Irish rocker, and his mother, a concert cellist. Now performing and busking on the streets of New York and mentored by a mysterious stranger, August uses his remarkable musical talent to seek the parents from whom he was separated at birth.
The workshop will include Christopher Riley (A Christmas Story, The Good Fight) as August, Jeremy Kushnier (Footloose, Jersey Boys) as Wizard, Matthew James Thomas (Pippin, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) as Louis, Talia Suskauer (Wicked, Parade, Be More Chill) as Lyla, Jeffrey Cornelius (Hadestown, Dear Evan Hansen) as Arthur X, Ayvah Johnson (Tina – The Tina Turner Musical) as Hope and an ensemble that includes Pomme Koch (The Band’s Visit, Safety Not Guaranteed), Wade McCollum (Floyd Collins, My Fair Lady), Inés Nassara (Hair, The Wiz), Shea Renne (Hadestown, Gatsby), Heath Saunders (Company, Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812), and Vishal Vaidya (Merrily We Roll Along, Groundhog Day). Casting by The TRC Company with Tara Rubin, CSA; Kevin Metzger-Timson, CSA; and Frankie Ramirez, CSA.
