Jeffrey Cornelius, Lauryn Adams and Bradley Adam Stein to Lead SENIOR CLASS at Olney Theatre Center
Performances will run from May 16 - June 22, 2025.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Apr. 10, 2025
Olney Theatre Center will present the world premiere of Senior Class, a new musical, on the Roberts Mainstage May 16 - June 22, 2025 in association with Kevin Duda Productions, Inc. The book and lyrics are by Melvin Tunstall III with music by Tunstall and Greg Dean Borowsky (Polkadots: The Cool Kids Musical), and the concept for the musical is by Kevin Duda, who proposed it to Tunstall while the two were both performing in the Broadway ensemble for Beautiful - The Carole King Musical. By coincidence, the production is directed by Amy Anders Corcoran, who directed the resident regional premiere of Beautiful at Olney Theatre last season.
Emmy Award-winner Karla Puno Garcia is the choreographer, and Dolores Duran-Cefalu music directs the world premiere.
About the show
When budget cuts to the arts program mean their high school theatre can’t pay for the rights to My Fair Lady, G.B. (Jeffrey Cornelius) and Colin (Bradley Adam Stein), two Broadway-obsessed students, decide to stage their own original musical version of Shaw’s Pygmalion which, as the source for the Lerner and Loewe classic, is in the public domain. The search for an actress to play their Eliza Doolittle leads them to a Harlem-born-and-bred subway dancer named Alizé (Lauryn Adams) who just might be perfect — but artistic egos and high school hierarchies threaten to undermine the production before the big opening night. As they mount their production of My Leading Lady: A New Pygmalion... with a Preface and Sequel (Shavians will get the reference), the class and gender divides of Shaw’s original emerge in surprising ways. Can the Senior Class musical be saved? (And will Colin win his much-wished-for “Jimmy” Award, launching his meteoric rise to stardom as the first-ever J-EGOT?) Senior Class combines high voltage dancing with Broadway savvy to deliver Shaw’s timeless debate in a contemporary setting.
In addition to Stein as Colin, Cornelius as G.B., and Adams as Alizé, the 20-person cast includes Quadry Brown, Wynter Nicole Cook, Mia Goodman, Ciara Hargrove, Angelo Harrington II, Santina Maiolatesi, Nico Nazal, Ashley D. Nguyen, Jacob Pelzman-Kern, Connor James Reilly, Russell Rinker, Alanna Sibrián, David Singleton, Taryn Smithson, Jordyn Taylor, Taylor J. Washington, and Gwynne Wood. Swings for the production are Ariel Kraje, Nat Mitchell, Haley Nachlas, and Bryan Stopak.
Joining Corcoran, Garcia, and Duran-Cefalu on the creative are: Sam Young (Orchestrations), Lawrence E. Moten III (Set Design), Kendra Rai (Costume Design), Colin K. Bills (Lighting Design), LaShawn Melton (Wig Design), Kevin Alexander (Sound Design), Christopher Youstra (Associate Music Director/Conductor), Lauren Davis (Assistant Director), Erin Speer (Script Associate), Voltaire Wade-Green (Associate Choreographer), Danielle DeLaFuente (Associate Set Designer), Kasey Brown (Assistant Costume Designer), Yannick Godts (Assistant Light Designer).
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