Zombie Musical by Tony Award-Winning Duo Workshopped at University of Texas at Austin
A new sandwich by Chicken Hutt has hit the market. But there is one small snag. The fast-food restaurant’s customers are turning into zombies.
This is the premise for Tony Award-winning team (2002 Best Original Score and Best Book for a Musical for Urinetown) Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann’s new project, a subversive zombie musical commissioned by True Love Productions. Kotis, Hollmann, and director Sean Daniels tapped into the talents of University of Texas at Austin Department of Theatre and Dance faculty Lyn Koenning and Natasha Davison and their students to workshop the musical this fall.
The workshop process has been integrated into this semester’s curriculum, allowing a cast of 26 undergraduate students supported by a team of graduate design students the opportunity to partner with these renowned Broadway artists in the development of the musical. With four scenes and five songs now complete, Kotis, Hollmann and Daniels return to the university in December to work alongside the UT cast and creative team.
About the Creative Team
Greg Kotis (Book and Lyrics) is the author of many plays and musicals including Michael von Siebenburg Melts Through the Floorboards, Yeast Nation (Book/Lyrics), The Unhappiness Plays, The Boring-est Poem in the World, The Truth About Santa, Pig Farm, Eat the Taste, Urinetown (Book/Lyrics, for which he won an Obie Award and two Tony Awards), and Jobey and Katherine. His work has been produced and developed in theaters across the country and around the world, including Actors Theatre of Louisville, American Conservatory Theater, American Theater Company, Henry Miller’s Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Stage and Film, Perseverance Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, Soho Rep, South Coast Rep, and The Old Globe, among others. Kotis is a member of the Neo-Futurists, the Cardiff Giant Theater Company, ASCAP, the Dramatists Guild, and is a 2010-11 Lark Play Development Center Playwrights Workshop Fellow.
Mark Hollmann (Music and Lyrics) received the Tony Award, the National Broadway Theatre Award and the Obie Award for his score to Urinetown, which itself won Outer Critics Circle, Drama League and Lucille Lortel Awards for best musical. Other shows as composer/lyricist: Yeast Nation (New York International Fringe Festival, Perseverance Theatre, and American Theatre Company), The Man in the White Suit (New York Stage and Film), The Girl, the Grouch, and the Goat (University Theatre, U. of Kansas), Alchemist the Musical (Seattle Fringe Festival), Jack the Chipper (Greenview Arts Center, Chicago), Kabooooom! (University Theater, U. of Chicago), I Think I Can and Deal with It! (Berkshire Theatre Festival), and Fare for All (Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Gardens, NYC). Actor/co-writer for The Rack, Theater of Funny, The Mercy Ripper, LBJFKKK, Love Me, All Eight Die and After Taste (Cardiff Giant Theater, Chicago).
Sean Daniels (Director) is the artist-at-large at the Geva Theatre Centre in Rochester, New York. He previously spent four years at the Tony Award-winning Actors Theatre of Louisville as the theater’s Associate Artistic Director (where he directed a record seventeen productions including five Humana Festivals). Daniels is the former Associate Artistic Director/Resident Director of the California Shakespeare Theater and before that spent a decade as the Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Dad’s Garage Theater Company in Atlanta, Georgia. Daniels has developed new plays with and directed the world premieres of many playwrights including: Two Time Tony Award winners’: Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann (Urinetown), and Trey Parker and Matt Stone (The Book of Mormon); Pulitzer Prize Finalists Kristoffer Diaz and Steven Drukman; and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Glee, Big Love, Spiderman).
Workshop Team Natasha Davison, Director/Choreographer; Lyn Koenning, Music Director; Steven Wilson, Assistant Director; Designers: Rachel Alulis, Patrick Lord, Mercedes O'Bannion; Stage Managers: Danya Gorel, Joe Heike
Cast: Shereen Ahmad, Mallory Ayliffe, Lauren Beausoleil, Tyler Cullen, Allie Donnelly, Meghan Enright, Felicia Fitzpatrick, Mandy Foster, Catherine Frank, Sydney Frank, Nicolas Garza, Dylan John Gonzales, Emma Graves, Andie Haddad, Grace Hanna, Quinton Johnson, Jack Leahy, Breanna Lind, Devin Medley, Cherry Mendoza, Christopher Montalvo, Laura Rogers, Lilly Stafford, Sam Strum, Ursula Walker, Joseph Wilson
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