Michael R. Jackson & Anna K. Jacobs' TEETH Musical at Playwrights Horizons + New World Stages

Casting announcement for Michael R. Jackson's next musical! 

Playwrights Horizons announces the cast of Teeth, a new musical with book and music by Anna K. Jacobs, book and lyrics by Michael R. Jackson, and choreography by Raja Feather Kelly, in a world premiere production directed by Sarah Benson (February 21 - March 31, 2024; opening March 12).

Teeth features Alyse Alan Louis (Broadway: Amelie; Off-Broadway: White Girl in Danger) in the central role of Dawn O'Keefe, Courtney Bassett (Broadway: Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812; Off Broadway: Titanique) as Promise Keeper Girl Becky, Phoenix Best (Broadway: Dear Evan Hansen, The Color Purple) as Promise Keeper Girl Fiona, Will Connolly (Broadway: Once; Off-Broadway: After the Blast) as Brad O'Keefe, Jason Gotay (TV: “Gossip Girl,” Peter Pan Live!) as Tobey/Truthseeker, Jenna Rose Husli (Off-Broadway: A Tiny Bit of Sky) as Promise Keeper Girl Trisha, Jared Loftin (Gigantic, A.D. 16) as Ryan/Truthseeker, Lexi Rhoades (Off-Broadway: Sugar, Sistas: The Musical) as Promise Keeper Girl Rachael, Wren Rivera (Broadway: Jagged Little Pill; Regional: Bye Bye Birdie) as Promise Keeper Girl Stephanie, Helen J Shen (Regional: Mamma Mia!, The Wedding Singer) as Promise Keeper Girl Keke. The creative team includes Adam Rigg (Scenic Design), Enver Chakartash (Costume Designer), Jane Cox and Stacey Derosier (Lighting Designers), Kris Kukul (Orchestrations), Jeremy Chernick (Special Effects Designer), Julie McBride (Music Supervisor).

Based on the 2007 cult classic comedy horror film of the same name, Teeth follows Dawn O'Keefe (Alyse Alan Louis), an evangelical Christian teen struggling to be an exemplar of purity amongst her community of fellow Promise Keeper Girls. Her stepbrother, Brad (Will Connolly)—alienated by his repressive upbringing in the community led by his fanatical Pastor father and intrigued by the online camaraderie of the Truthseeker men's support group—is haunted by an indelible incident from his and Dawn's past. As Dawn's desires become tested and twisted by the men in her life, she discovers a deadly secret not even she understands: when men violate her, her body bites back—literally. Crackling with irrepressible desire and ancient rage, Teeth is a dark comedy conjuring the legend of one girl whose sexual curse may also be her salvation.

 

Of note, the commercial producer behind it is Mark Gordon (Saving Private Ryan, Criminal Minds, Steve Jobs), who has been trying to make a name for himself in theatre. So we can safely assume this has Broadway aspirations if it goes well at PH.

Updated On: 6/28/24 at 02:21 PM

It amuses me how for every smaller show that does well, everyone is just like "just move it to New World Stages", though I'm definitely guilty of doing that as well--I suppose there aren't that many off-Broadway commercial theaters.

But anyway I'm really excited for this!  I haven't watched the movie but the premise just seems bonkers enough that I feel like I'd enjoy this brand of humor, and I'm really interested in seeing Alyse Alan Louis on stage again after Soft Power.

"New World" seems to have become a colloquialism for "commercial Off-Broadway, 250+ seats, a stage larger than a postage stamp." The issue is that those Shubert venues (New World and Stage 42) are quite expensive.

I feel like this could go either the route of Carrie the Musical (yet another horror flop) or Book of Mormon since MRJ talks a lot about leaning into the religiousness of it all. I wanna be excited for it as A Strange Loop and White Girl in Danger fan but there’s been pretty bad industry talk about how problematic the producer Mark Gordon is (both with this and other theater projects) and I’ve heard he has a heavy hand in steering this creative process

There was that N-word incident years ago, and apparently he thinks of himself as quite the comedian (others disagree).  

Steven Pasquale is also in this! Two Off-Bway musicals in one season for him!

The $10 ones went on sale midnight last night!

https://youtu.be/wwUVGXEuVW0?feature=shared

 

There's been songs from this floating around on YouTube for a while. I heard about this show after falling in love with A Strange Loop, and I have been really excited to see it come to fruition. The sound is really interesting, as much as I like Michael R Jackson's music, he also does really well when collaborating with a composer.

curious whether anyone knows the expected run-time here?

(nothing on website yet.)

TaffyDavenport said: "

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this is the last show in their season on the main stage, this is likely to run well into the summer 

According to the audition notice, the final possible extension date is April 28.

Updated On: 2/16/24 at 04:59 PM