Winner of the 2008 Richard Rodgers Award and 2007 Jerry Bock Award from the BMI Foundation, See Rock City is billed as "a contemporary pop-rock musical about everyday people at tourist destinations across America. Each scene is complete within itself with the various scenes becoming building blocks to a larger theme."

Wagner is chair of the Department of Musical Theatre. Musical direction is by assistant professor Cynthia Kortman Westphal.

Because of this unique structure and the relatively small cast size, "Wagner and Kortman Westphal took the unusual route in creating two casts for the production.

Wagner stated, "Both casts have rehearsed independently, and until the final two performances, neither cast will have seen the work of the other. The only exception is the 'Tourists,' who are the same in each cast. Character interpretations and staging choices are somewhat different in each production. Our goal has been to give as many students as possible an opportunity to work with this new material."

See Rock City originally called for a cast of seven. With the two casts, along with the addition of separate actors as the tourists, the Michigan production has a cast of 32.

Dubbed the Maize and Blue casts, the casts will run in repertory, performing three shows each.

The artistic team includes Sarah Petty (lighting designer), Andrew Hill (costume designer) and Joe Shaheen (sound designer).

Performances play Dec. 10 at 7:30 PM, Dec. 11 & 12 at 8 PM, Dec. 12 & 13 at 2 PM, and Dec. 13 at 5 PM in the Arthur Miller Theatre.

In the last decade, the department (which has spawned many Broadway performers and Tony nominees) has made an effort to include new works as part of its performance repertoire.

Wagner stated, "Staging new works is becoming more and more necessary in a performance training program. As we celebrate the 26th year of our Department, it's worth noting that our graduates are constantly performing in numerous new musicals throughout the nation. Some of our alums have also gone on to write, produce, direct, choreograph and cast new works."

Previous "studio" and "full- scale" presentations have included productions of such new scripts as Ella Minnow Pea (Burkell/Loesel), A Good Boy (Spitulnik/Davis – both UM grads), The Pursuit of Persephone (Mills/Reichel), The Water (Stitt/Hylton) and Casino Paradise (Bolcom/Weinstein).

Stage manager is Hailli Risdale. The cast includes Holly Grossman, Madeline Trumble, Mark Ayesh, A. J. Holmes, Andy Jones, Nathan Lehmann, Haley Hannah, Marken Greenwood, Tyler Brunsman, Erik Heitz, R. J. Brown, Joe Carroll, Olivia Hernandez, Grace Morgan, Britney Coleman, Anne Markt, Alle-Faye Monka, Rachel Bahler, Claire, Ali Gordon, Amy Blackman, David Andrew Morton, Will Burton, Eric Maier, Tyler Jones, Amanda Choate, Katie Madison, Alex Kip, Ian Mazurek, Alex Akin, Colin Hartman, Olivia Hernandez, Grace Morgan, Han Park and Danny Romeo.

For more information, visit www.music.umich.edu.