STAGE TUBE: HANDS ON A HARDBODY Gets Another Regional Staging at Albany's Park Playhouse

Albany's Park Playhouse has just released a teaser video of their production of Hands on a Hardbody running from July 1 - July 26. Not only is Park Playhouse's production the Northeast Regional Premiere of the musical, but it is also the first regional production since the controversial TUTS version, which was forced to cancel performances last month due to unauthorized changes to the material.

Watch the preview video!

Less than a month ago, TUTS (Theatre Under the Stars) Underground presented Houston audiences with the Texas preimere of Hands on a Hardbody. Amanda Green, the show's creator, attended TUTS' opening performance and was displeased by all the changes that were made to the licensed script and plot. In fact, the production differed so much from the original Broadway version that the show licenser, Samuel French Inc., wrote a cease and desist letter to TUTS demanding that they cancel all remaining performances.

Hands on a Hardbody is based on the award-winning 1997 documentary of the same name, and tells the story of ten people in Longview, Texas, who enter an endurance contest to win a brand new pickup truck. The musical, born of unlikely subject matter, features a book by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife), lyrics by Amanda Green and a Tony-nominated original score by Green and Grammy-nominated recording artist Trey Anastasio.

While telling the story of the Hardbody contest, the musical intimately examines the lives of its characters, each of whom has a different need for the truck in question: transportation for work, quick cash to put food on the table, a symbol of status, and so on.

For more information, visit http://www.parkplayhouse.com.