Monday, July 27, 2009
Allegiance to move to Broadway
Allegiance, the new musical that recently enjoyed a successful reading in Los Angeles July 13, is headed for Broadway. George Takei of "Star Trek" fame, who took part in the reading, told Howard Stern on his Sirius/XM radio show today that the musical should hit Broadway sometime in 2011. The performance at the Japanese American National Museum also starred Miss Saigon Tony winner Lea Salonga.With music and lyrics by Jay Kuo, and book by Kuo and Lorenzo Thione, the story follows Sam Omura (Takei), the patriarch of a family from Salinas, CA who must move his family to Heart Mountain, a “relocation facility” shared with 10,000 other Japanese-Americans. Salonga played the role of Gloria Suzuki, Sam’s former sister-in-law, in the reading, and is expected to remain with the show when it moves to Broadway.
Also featured in the Los Angeles reading of Allegiance were Broadway’s Jose Llana (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Flower Drum Song), James Snyder (Cry-Baby), Michael K. Lee (Pacific Overtures), Jennifer Paz (Les Miserables) and Enrico Rodriguez (Rent) as well as L.A. actors Michael Hagiwara and Tamlyn Tomita.
