Allegiance – A New American Musical

Sept. 6 - Oct. 21, 2012
WORLD PREMIERE
Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage
Old Globe Theatre
Conrad Prebys Theatre Center

Music and Lyrics by Jay Kuo
Book by Jay Kuo and Lorenzo Thione
Directed by Stafford Arima
Musical Direction and Arrangements by Lynne Shankel
Choreography by Christopher Gattelli
Scenic Design by Donyale Werle
Costume Design by David Zinn
Lighting Design by Ben Stanton
Sound Design by Peter Hylenski

Allegiance – A New American Musical is an epic story of love, war and heroism set during the Japanese American internment of World War II. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Omura family is relocated from their home in Salinas, California to the Heart Mountain internment camp in the wastelands of Wyoming. Their story reflects a conflicted nation and people divided. Father Tatsuo, a successful store owner, resists their internment; mother Kimiko fears for their future, resigned to their fate; older son James volunteers in an all-Japanese American army regiment; and younger son Sam yearns for acceptance in America. Allegiance sheds new light upon a dark chapter of American history. With its moving score, Allegiance connects the audience with universal themes of love, family and redemption.
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Publicity Photos
George Takei will star in the World Premiere of Allegiance - A New American Musical, with music and lyrics by Jay Kuo and book by Kuo and Lorenzo Thione, directed by Stafford Arima, Sept. 6 - Oct. 20, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo courtesy of The Old Globe.
Lea Salonga will star in the World Premiere of Allegiance - A New American Musical, with music and lyrics by Jay Kuo and book by Kuo and Lorenzo Thione, directed by Stafford Arima, Sept. 6 - Oct. 20, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo courtesy of The Old Globe.
Telly Leung will star in the World Premiere of Allegiance - A New American Musical, with music and lyrics by Jay Kuo and book by Kuo and Lorenzo Thione, directed by Stafford Arima, Sept. 6 - Oct. 20, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo courtesy of The Old Globe.
   
   
Playwright Lorenzo Thione. The World Premiere of Allegiance - A New American Musical, with music and lyrics by Jay Kuo and book by Kuo and Thione, directed by Stafford Arima, runs Sept. 6 - Oct. 20, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo courtesy of The Old Globe.
    


Cast and Creative Team

(click on image to download a high-resolution photo)
  Allegiance is Jay Kuo’s fourth musical.  His composing career began at Stanford, where he wrote and produced Upwardly Mobile, a story of five friends coming of age.  Kuo’s second musical, Insignificant Others, played from 2006-2008 in San Francisco at New Conservatory Theatre Center, Zeum and Theatre 39 and won a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Original Script.  His third work, Worlds Apart, about star-crossed lovers in a cultural divide, performed in concert at San Francisco's Magic Theatre in late 2006 and in New York City at New World Stages in 2008.  Allegiance held its first staged reading in Los Angeles in July 2009 and two further readings in New York City in 2010.  In addition to composing, Kuo is a Broadway producer (Catch Me If You Can, American Idiot, Slava’s Snowshow).  Kuo is also a graduate of the Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley and a member of the California Bar.
  Lorenzo Thione is a serial entrepreneur, theater producer and community activist.  After having been part of the producing team of shows such as Catch Me If You Can and American Idiot, he began working on Allegiance in 2008 alongside friend and composer Jay Kuo following an encounter with George Takei, whose experience in the internment camps inspired them to write a musical about this dark and mostly unknown chapter of American history.  Prior to his work in theater, Thione was also the co-founder of Powerset, Inc., an internet search company acquired by Microsoft in 2008, and whose technology was subsequently relaunched as part of Bing.  Thione has also co-founded and helped grow StartOut, a national non-profit organization dedicated to fostering and developing the next generation of entrepreneurs and business leaders within the LGBT community.  Thione serves on the board of trustees of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and of several companies in the U.S. and abroad.  A native of Milan, Italy, Thione is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.  He is a named inventor on over 30 patents in the U.S. and worldwide.
  Stafford Arima was nominated for an Olivier Award for his direction of the West End premiere of the musical Ragtime.  He also directed the critically acclaimed musical Altar Boyz, which received the Outstanding Off Broadway Musical Outer Critics Circle Award, was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical and ran over 2,000 performances Off-Broadway.  His upcoming credits include Carrie (MCC Theater).  His other credits include The Tin Pan Alley Rag (nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award as Outstanding Off Broadway Musical, Roundabout Theatre Company), Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (Stratford Shakespeare Festival), Candide (San Francisco Symphony), The Secret Garden (World AIDS Day concert), A Tribute to Stephen Sondheim (Boston Pops), Guys and Dolls (Paper Mill Playhouse), Abyssinia (Goodspeed Musicals), Ace (The Old Globe), The Princess and the Black-Eyed Pea (San Diego Repertory Theatre), Bowfire (PBS television special) and Children’s Letters to God (Off Broadway).  His projects in development include A Separate Peace (based on John Knowles’ novel), bare and Somewhere in Time (based on the film and novel by Richard Matheson).  Arima graduated from York University in Toronto where he was the recipient of the Dean’s Prize for Excellence in Creative Work.
  Lynne Shankel (Musical Direction and Arrangements) has written orchestrations and arrangements for the San Francisco Symphony (featuring Bonnie Raitt), Dallas Opera Orchestra (featuring George Hearn) and for Tony Bennett’s famed 80th birthday celebration at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles.  She was music director/arranger for the Broadway production of Cry-Baby, as well as the resident music supervisor for the Tony Award-winning revival of Company, for which she conducted the Grammy-nominated cast album.  She was music director/arranger for the Off Broadway hit Altar Boyz, for which she received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Orchestrations.  Shankel was music supervisor for the San Francisco premiere of Nick Adams at Davies Symphony Hall.  Her other Broadway credits include Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown and The Lion King.  Her Off Broadway credits include Vanities, Altar Boyz, The Thing About Men, Summer of ’42 (music direction, vocal arrangements and orchestrations), The Cocoanuts and Milk and Honey.  Shankel has worked regionally on Band Geeks! (Goodspeed Musicals), Pop! (Yale Repertory Theatre), Cry-Baby (La Jolla Playhouse), Party Come Here and The Opposite of Sex (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Vanities (Pasadena Playhouse, TheatreWorks), Princesses (The 5th Avenue Theatre, Goodspeed Musicals), Tom Jones (North Shore Music Theatre), Summer of ’42 (Goodspeed, TheatreWorks), Twelfth Night (Long Wharf Theatre) and Rough Crossing and Camino Real (Hartford Stage).  Her recordings include New York City Christmas (Sh-K-Boom Records), Betty Buckley: Heart to Heart (KO Records), Altar Boyz (Sh-K-Boom), Summer of ’42 (Jay Records) and Lauren Kennedy: Here And Now (PS Classics).
  Christopher Gattelli (Choreographer) was nominated for a Tony Award for his work on musical staging for the Lincoln Center Theater revival of South Pacific, for which he also received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination.  He choroegraphed the revival of Godspell, currently on Broadway, and Newsies, which opens on Broadway in March 2012, and he served as director and choroegrapher of Silence! The Musical, which is currently running Off Broadway. His other Broadway credits include Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Sunday in the Park with George, 13, The Ritz, Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me and High Fidelity.  Gattelli’s West End/London credits include Silence! The Musical, Sunday in the Park with George and tick, tick... BOOM!  His Off Broadway credits include Altar Boyz (Lucille Lortel and Joe A. Callaway Awards, Drama Desk Award nomination), Bat Boy: The Musical (Lucille Lortel Award), tick, tick... BOOM!, 10 Million Miles, Adrift in Macao and I Love You Because.  Gattelli’s regional credits include Jim Henson's Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas and Radio Girl (director/choreographer, Goodspeed Musicals) and The Baker's Wife (Paper Mill Playhouse).  His additional credits include the Chess concert with Josh Groban, Hair concert with Jennifer Hudson and “The Rosie O'Donnell Show” (resident choreographer for three seasons).  Gattelli is currently working on the La Jolla Playhouse world premiere of Little Miss Sunshine.
  With a career spanning five decades, George Takei is best known for his founding role in the acclaimed television series “Star Trek” in which he played Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the USS Enterprise.  Takei starred in three seasons of “Star Trek” and later reprised his iconic role in six movies and several video games.  More recently, Takei won over a new generation of fans with his recurring guest role on the sci-fi drama “Heroes” as Kaito Nakamura.  Takei has participated, alongside Tony Award winner Lea Salonga, in all readings and workshops of Allegiance since 2009.  Takei is part of the cast of Nickelodeon's live-action comedy series, “Supah Ninjas!,” which premiered in April 2011.  He starred in the film Larry Crowne opposite Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, which was released theatrically nationwide in July 2011 by Universal Pictures.  Takei has also lent his voiceover talent to hundreds of characters in film, television, video games and commercials including Mulan, Mulan II, “The Simpsons,” “Scooby-Doo and the Samurai Sword,” “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” “The Smurfs” and “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.”  Adding to his body of work, Takei has also provided narration on many projects including the 2009 PBS series “The National Parks: America's Best Idea,” the 2006 Peabody Award-winning radio documentary “Crossing East,” centered on the history of Asian American immigration to the United States, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (cassette), which garnered the performer a 1987 Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Recording.
  Lea Salonga is a Filipina singer/actress best known for originating the role of Kim in the West End production of Miss Saigon and bringing it to Broadway, winning the Tony, Olivier and many other awards.  She was the first Asian to play Eponine in Les Misérables on Broadway, returned to the show in 2007 as Fantine and reprised the role for the sold-out 25th anniversary concert at London's O2 Arena.  Salonga wowed audiences and critics alike in 2010 in her first ever cabaret show at New York’s famed Café Carlyle and returned in the summer of 2011 for another engagement.  In August 2011, she released a live version of her 2010 concert Lea Salonga: The Journey So Far, and it rose to #3 on the iTunes Jazz Charts.  Honored with an appointment as a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Goodwill Ambassador in October of 2010, Salonga has vowed to act as advocate for the Youth and United Nations Global Alliance initiative led by the FAO.  Salonga’s feature film credits include the singing voice of Princess Jasmine in Aladdin and Fa Mulan in Mulan and Mulan II.  In honor of her portrayal of the beloved princesses, Disneyland bestowed upon Salonga the honor of Disney Legend in the summer of 2011.
  Telly Leung is currently starring on Broadway in the revival of Godspell.  His other Broadway credits include Flower Drum Song (2002 revival starring Lea Salonga), Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures (2005 revival) and the final company of Rent.  He originated the role of Boq in the Chicago company of Wicked.  His other favorite credits include Angel in Rent directed by Neil Patrick Harris (Hollywood Bowl), Song Liling in M. Butterfly (Philadelphia Theatre Company), Give It Up! aka Lysistrata Jones (Dallas Theater Center, World Premiere), Godspell (Paper Mill Playhouse), Bernstein: Mass (Baltimore Symphony, The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall), Harold Bride in Titanic and Barnaby in Hello, Dolly! (The Muny), Simon in Jesus Christ Superstar (Music Circus, directed by Stafford Arima), Thuy in Miss Saigon (Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera) and Lun Tha in The King and I with Lou Diamond Philips (North Carolina Theatre).  Leung has been featured on the recordings for Godspell (Sh-K-Boom Records), Flower Drum Song (DRG Records), Pacific Overtures (PS Classics), Wall to Wall Sondheim (Live from Symphony Space), Dear Edwina (PS Classics) and the Grammy Award-nominated Bernstein: Mass with Marin Alsop (Sony/Naxos).  His television and film credits include “Glee” (Wes, Dalton Academy Warblers), “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” and Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway.  Leung holds a B.F.A. from the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama.