New Line Theater Completes Casting for HIGH FIDELITY

New Line Theatre, "the Bad Boy of Musical Theatre," will close its 21st season May31-June 23, 2012, with HIGH FIDELITY, the funny, rowdy, emotional rock musical that garnered positive reviews in New Line's 2008 production, the first production of the show after its Broadway run.

With a script by award-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole, Good People), music by Tom Kitt (Pulitzer Prize-winning composer of Next to Normal), and lyrics by Amanda Green (Bring It On, Hands on a Hardbody), HIGH FIDELITY explores America's new Lost Generation and the music they live their lives to. This is a rock and roll score, inspired by and peppered with musical references to some of the great rock and pop artists of our time, the muscular American rock sound of Bruce Springsteen, the raw rage of Guns N' Roses, the Eastern experiments of George Harrison and The Beatles, the intellectual playfulness of Talking Heads, the fierce defiance of Aretha Franklin, the smoky groove of Percy Sledge, the naked emotion of Ben Folds, the driving cynicism of Billy Joel.

HIGH FIDELITY is about experiencing music autobiographically, about the connection we feel to the pop music of our times. The show tells the funny/sad tale of Rob Gordon, a thirty-something indie record store owner who knows everything there is to know about music but nothing about holding on to girlfriends. The story starts with the breakup of the most recent in a long string of failed relationships, and Rob has to learn (with a little help from Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen) to take life and love as seriously as he takes his music. This is a story not just told with music, but entirely about music, written by people who genuinely love rock and roll, and based on the novel that defined once and for all the relationship between rock and the lives of its fans.

For more information about the show, visit http://www.newlinetheatre.com/hifipage.html

Several of the original 2008 New Line cast will recreate their performances, surrounded by an incredible cast of New Line All-Stars. The Hi-Fi cast includes Jeffrey M. Wright (Rob), Kimi Short (Laura), Zachary Allen Farmer (Barry), Mike Dowdy (Dick), Aaron Allen (Ian), Talichia Noah (Liz), Terrie Carolan (Anna), Margeau Baue Steinau (Marie LaSalle), Ryan Foizey, Nicholas Kelly, Todd Micali, Taylor Pietz, Sarah Porter, Keith Thompson, and Chrissy Young. Scott Miller directs, Robin Michelle Berger choreographs, and Justin Smolik will lead the New Line Band. Amy Kelly will repeat her costuming duties, with Ken Zinkl designing lights, Scott Schoonover designing the set, and Donald Smith designing sound.

Since New Line first produced High Fidelity in 2008, more than a dozen other companies around the country have come to New Line to get in contact with the show's creators to secure production rights. New Line brought this brilliant, exciting show back to life after its rejection by the New York critics.

New Line Theatre is a professional company dedicated to involving the people of the St. Louis region in the exploration and creation of daring, provocative, socially and politically relevant works of musical theatre, press notes state. New Line Theatre was created in 1991 at the vanguard of a new wave of nonprofit musical theatre just starting to take hold across the country. The company has given birth to several world premiere musicals over the years and has brought back to life many shows that did not do well in their original New York productions. Altogether, New Line has produced 62 musicals and 5 concerts of theatre songs since 1991. New Line Theatre was recently given its own entry in the latest edition of the prestigious Cambridge Guide to American Theatre.

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