Tony Award-winning choreographer Rob Ashford — who is attached to the work — told Playbill.com columnist Harry Haun, "I start a workshop [April 23] of Cry-Baby, the new musical based on the John Waters 1990 movie."
According to Ashford, Conrad John Schuck (Annie Get Your Gun) and Jan Maxwell (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, currently seen in Coram Boy) star in the workshop with the Johnny Depp title role "played by a 22-year-old guy from L.A. you've never heard of, but you'll know him after this — James Snyder," Ashford added. Following the four-week NYC workshop, the Tony winner noted "we'll do it again in La Jolla in September."
A production spokesperson also confirmed to Playbill.com that Tony Award nominee Megan Lawrence (Pajama Game) is featured in the cast with Christopher Hanke, Alli Mauzey, Chester Gregory II, Elizabeth Stanley, Nicolette Hart, Carly Jibson, Rachel Stern, Cameron Adams, Ashley D'Ambrosio, Kearran Giovanni, Case Dillard, Spencer Liff, Meggie Cansler, Charlie Sutton, Nick Blaemire, Michael Buchanan, Peter Matthew Smith, Eric Christian, Joanna Glushak, David M. Lutken and Nicolas Dromard.
Snyder recently appeared in a reading of Rock of Ages and has been seen onstage in the Los Angeles runs of The Fantasticks and Star Wars Trilogy in 30 Minutes. Following a stint on the VH1 reality series "In Search of the Partridge Family," he appeared in the films "Pretty Persuasion" and "She's the Man."
Mark Brokaw stages the new musical based on the film by John Waters about "the baddest boy in town" who falls for a good girl in 1954's Baltimore. The show features a book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan with music and lyrics by David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger. The Cry-Baby world premiere was previously scheduled for February-March 2007 at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre and was delayed because there was no available Broadway house for a transfer. As the musical could also not be scheduled as part of their new season, La Jolla Playhouse nabbed the musical's debut for a Nov. 6-Dec. 23 run.
Pajama Game's Lawrence was part of a previous reading in the role of Hatchet-Face opposite Joe Mandragona as Cry-Baby and Christopher J. Hanke as Baldwin.
