Irvington Stage Door Series Sets Final Reading of Season

The Irvington Town Hall Theater in Irvington, NY announces the final reading in their Irvington Stage Door Reading Series of the new musical The Great American Whoopee by Gonzalo A. Valencia and Michael Campbell on Monday, May 18 at 7:30 pm. The two have been working on this musical adaptation of Mushroom: The Story of the A-Bomb Kid, an autobiography written by John Aristotle Phillips and his friend, David Michaelis for over a year now.

"When people think of musicals, they don't always think of a Princeton undergrad creating a bomb," says Theater Manager Greg Allen. "However that is the excitement of what our reading series brings to the public; hearing works in progress that do not fit into the normal 'musical comedy' genre."

Greg Allen first heard a number from this musical this past fall and approached the writers about bringing their work to Irvington. The musical has an exciting modern score that accounts the story of John Phillips studying physics at Princeton in 1976. As a class project, he decides to design an atomic bomb that could fit into the back of a taxi cab - all to prove the point of the dangers of nuclear armament.

"The musical theater landscape is constantly changing," Allen says. "Look at Tony nominated Fun Home or the move of highly praised Hamilton from the Public to Broadway this summer. Writers are attacking challenging stories and setting them to music to create a moving and thought-provoking theatrical experience."

The Stage Door Series is presented as a reading of scripts and not as a fully staged production. Patrons can pay attention to the music and words and then engage in a dialogue with the creative team after the reading. This particular show is still a work in progress and the creative team can talk about adapting a true story, deciding what parts to musicalize, discuss the social implication in the story, and fill in the missing holes that have yet to be written.

The cast includes: Michael Campbell, Gonzalo Valencia, Adam Biner, Danny Arnold, Sam Kaplan, Todd Shumpert, Madeline Fansler, Ashley Leone, and Christian Green.

The Stage Door Series is part of ARTSEE, The Festival of New Works in
Westchester County, NY. https://artswestchester.org/50th-anniversary/artsee-a-festival-of-new-work/

The Irvington Town Hall Theater is located at 85 Main Street, Irvington NY. Tickets are $10 in advance and $13 at the door. Visit www.irvingtontheater.com for more information.

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