The previously announced world premiere production of The Connector has found its cast and creative team. MCC Theater will present the new work, featuring music and lyrics by Tony winner Jason Robert Brown and a book by Jonathan Marc Sherman, in its Newman Mills Theater Off-Broadway. Performances begin January 12, 2024, with an opening set for February 6. The limited engagement will run through February 18.
Conceived and directed by Daisy Prince, The Connector centers on two journalists working at fictional magazine The Connector in the rapidly-changing media landscape of the late 1990s. Ambitious Ethan Dobson will do anything for the next big scoop, while Robin Martinez might have to go just as far to stop him.
The cast will include Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap, NCIS: New Orleans), Joanna Carpenter (Sweeney Todd), Max Crumm (Disaster!), Hannah Cruz (Hamilton, MCC’s Only Gold), George Dvorsky (Closer Than Ever), Ashley Pérez Flanagan (Oratorio For Living Things), Danielle Lee Greaves (Parade), Mylinda Hull (Mr. Saturday Night), Daniel Jenkins (Oslo), Cedric Lamar (King Lear), Jessica Molaskey (Songs for a New World), Fergie Philippe (Hamilton), Eliseo Román (In the Heights), Ben Levi Ross (Dear Evan Hansen), Ann Sanders (The Music Man), Kyle Sherman (Ordinary Days), and Michael Winther (Fun Home).
Although a Golden Globe winner known for his television work on Quantum Leap and Star Trek: Enterprise, Bakula began his career in theatre. He was Tony-nominated for the 1998 musical Romance/Romance and starred as Nathan Detroit in the 2009 Hollywood Bowl production of Guys and Dolls.
Prince and Brown have previously collaborated, with Prince helming the Off-Broadway stagings of Brown's Songs for a New World and The Last Five Years. Brown will lead the band at each performance of The Connector. Karla Puno Garcia will choreograph the new work.
The Connector will feature scenic design by Beowulf Boritt (New York, New York), costume design by Márion Tálan de la Rosa (Oratorio For Living Things), lighting design by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (Kimberly Akimbo), sound design by Jon Weston (Parade), and orchestrations and arrangements by Brown. Tom Murray is the music director and Kristy Norter is the music coordinator. Erin Gioia Albrecht serves as production stage manager, and casting is by Patrick Goodwin of The Telsey Office.
The Connector is supported by the Gary Platt Initiative for New Musicals at MCC Theater and the Burton A. Zipser and Sandra D. Zipser Foundation.
