New Award-Winning Musical MECHANICAL Receives First Readings

The new musical MECHANICAL by Jonathan Larson Grant recipients Mike Pettry (The Light Princess) and Sara Cooper (The Memory Show) will be presented as staged readings on September 25th and 28th, funded in part by a New Works Grant from Queens Council on the Arts.

With music by Pettry and book and lyrics by Cooper, MECHANICAL is a musical about a high school election, robots, and misinformation in the age of social media. When Ellen learns that she is part human and part Artificially Intelligent American (AIA), she runs for junior class president against Johnny, a popular bully who is running on an anti-AIA platform. Believing in her capacity to change the status quo, she instead finds herself at the mercy of social media image, a student body bent on mass consumption, and a sea of rapidly spreading misinformation.

The readings will be directed by Dev Bondarin (Follies - Astoria Performing Arts Center), music directed by Chris Gurr (The View Upstairs), and stage managed by Jessica Kate Matthews. The reading will feature Sarita Amani Nash as Ellen and David J. Wiens as Clay, with Ashley Chiu as Steffany, Hana Slevin as Tiffany, Cliff Sellers as Johnny, and Maria Bufalini, Bethany Eggleston, Stephen Mark, and Luke Zimmerman.