Lift Up Your Hands! Tony Winner Lena Hall Will Play Two Roles in the HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH National Tour

By: May. 24, 2016
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Lena Hall will reprise her Tony Award-winning performance as Yitzhak in the highly anticipated National Tour of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the 2014 Tony Award-winning Best Musical Revival, in performances at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco (October 2-30, 2016) and the Hollywood Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles (November 1-27, 2016). She will join previously-announced Darren Criss on the tour.

In a groundbreaking twist, Lena Hall will also play the role of Hedwig for one performance a week in San Francisco and Los Angeles. It is a rare occasion for a Tony Award winner to go on national tour, and historic for the same person to play both Hedwig and Yitzhak. Book writer John Cameron Mitchell enthused, "Oh my Goddess, Lena Hall is the only talent I know who could play a brilliant Yitzhak and Hedwig in the same production. Talk about finding your other half. It's Hedwig history in the making."

Hall, thrilled at the opportunity to explore and express this double role, explains, "I'm thrilled to be returning to Hedwig and the Angry Inch performing not one, but two iconic roles in Los Angeles and my hometown of San Francisco. I have never been one to shy away from a challenge and playing Hedwig has always been a dream of mine. To be able to play both Yitzhak and Hedwig in the same day presents one of the biggest challenges I have seen to date and I'm so excited! Not only will I get to share the stage with my fellow San Francisco native and friend Darren Criss; but I will also get a chance to begin my own journey as the glam rock heroine Hedwig. To tell her story in my hometown and in Los Angeles is the greatest homecoming I can think of, and I am looking forward to sharing this journey with my friends, family and Hedheads."

Photos from Hall's final Broadway perfromance

Hall will appear as Hedwig in the following performances: San Francisco, Sunday, October 9 at 7:00 pm, Wednesday, October 12 at 8:00 pm, Wednesday, October 19 at 8:00 pm, and Wednesday, October 26 at 8:00 pm. Los Angeles, Sunday, November 6 at 6:30 pm, Sunday, November 13 at 6:30 pm, Sunday, November 20 at 6:30 pm, and Friday, November 25 at 8:00 pm.

About the casting of Hall, composer and lyricist Stephen Trask exclaimed, "I love Lena so much. I've traveled and performed with her a lot in the last couple years. She's a kindred spirit and a brilliant, one-of-a-kind, came-out-of-the-sky kind of performer. Everyone who has the chance to see her as Yitzhak should consider themselves really, really lucky."

Tony Winner and Grammy nominee Lena Hall just completed touring the US and Canada with Josh Groban on the Stages tour and ended her critically acclaimed run starring as Yitzhak in the hit Broadway revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch for which she won the 2014 Tony Award for Featured Actress in a Musical. Prior to Hedwig, she starred as Nicola in the Tony Award winning musical Kinky Boots. Lena sold out her solo shows at the legendary Café Carlyle, Feinsteins / 54 Below and Feinsteins San Francisco and her live album "Sin & Salvation: Live At the Carlyle" can be found on iTunes, CD Baby, Amazon, et al. Previous Broadway and Off-Broadway roles include starring in the award-winning Toxic Avenger at New World Stages,Tarzan (Original Cast), Dracula (Original Cast), 42nd Street (Anytime Annie), Cats (Demeter), Beg Bugs (NYMF) and Green Eyes(Fringe). TV and film roles include guest roles on HBO's "Girls," "Good Girls Revolt" (Amazon Prime), and "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic." Born and raised in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury, Lena Hall traveled the world as a young performer, receiving her first big break singing for Pope John Paul II at Candlestick Stadium for over 50,000 people at the age of 7. As a teenager Hall was a member of the Young People's Teen Musical Theatre Company in San Francisco and eventually joined the national tour of Cats. Lena currently resides in New York City.

The members of "The Angry Inch," Hedwig's band - aka "Tits of Clay" - are music director Justin Craig (guitar and keyboards), Matt Duncan (bass), Tim Mislock (guitar), and Peter Yanowitz (drums), all from the original Broadway production.

Following San Francisco and Los Angeles with Criss and Hall, the National Tour will then continue across North America. Casting for the rest of the Hedwig and the Angry Inch National Tour will be announced at a later date.

Below, watch as Hall is joined onstage by her past costars in her final Broadway curtain call:

Brilliantly innovative, heartbreaking, and wickedly funny, Hedwig and the Angry Inch is the landmark musical by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask that is "groundbreaking and undoubtedly ahead of its time" (Entertainment Weekly). This genre-bending, fourth-wall-smashing musical sensation, with a pulsing score and electrifying performances, tells the story of one of the most unique characters to ever hit the stage. "Internationally ignored song stylist" Hedwig Robinson is out to set the record straight about her life, her loves, and the botched operation that left her with that "angry inch."

Directed by Tony Award-winner Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening) and winner of four 2014 Tony Awards, Hedwig and the Angry Inch played to record-breaking sell-out crowds on Broadway and promises to take North America by storm with whatTime Magazine proclaims is "the most exciting rock score written for the theatre since, oh, ever!

David Binder, who first produced Hedwig and the Angry Inch in 1997, produced the musical on Broadway with Jayne Baron Sherman, Barbara Whitman, Latitude Link, Patrick Catullo, Raise The Roof, Paula Marie Black, Colin Callender, Ruth Hendel, Sharon Karmazin, Martian Entertainment, Stacey Mindich, Eric Schnall, and The Shubert Organization. 101 Productions, Ltd were the executive producers. The record-breaking production ran for over 500 performances at the Belasco Theatre.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch was originally produced Off-Off-Broadway at Westbeth and then, under the direction of Peter Askin, ran over two years at the Jane Street Theatre beginning in February 1998. The musical won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical and both John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask won Obies in 2001. It won a 1998 New York Magazine Award and Entertainment Weekly's "Soundtrack of the Year" Award. Time Magazine named Hedwig the Top Musical of 1998.

The film of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, directed by John Cameron Mitchell, won the Audience Award and Best Director Awards at Sundance. Mitchell won the Best New Director from the National Board of Review, the Gotham Awards, and the LA Critics Society. Stage productions have played for many years in Japan and in 2008, Korea hosted a popular televised reality show about the search for a new star to play Hedwig.

The creative team for Hedwig and The Angry Inch features Emmy Award nominee Spencer Liff (musical staging), Tony Award nominee and Drama Desk Award winner Julian Crouch (scenic design), Tony Award and two-time Oscar nominee Arianne Phillips (costume design), four-time Tony Award winner Kevin Adams (lighting design), Mike Potter (hair and makeup design), Tony Award nominee and platinum-selling record producer Tim O'Heir (sound design), Benjamin Pearcy for 59 Productions (projection design), John Bair/Phosphene (animation), James Calleri (casting), Tony and Grammy Award nominee Ethan Popp (music supervisor & music coordinator), Justin Craig (music director), Stephen Gabis (dialect coach) andJohanna McKeon (associate director).

The Grammy nominated Original Broadway Cast Album for Hedwig and the Angry Inch is available from Atlantic Records.



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