'High School Musical' Competitor Sells Out On Opening Night -- A Single "In Your Dreams" Show Featuring "Hairspray’s" Diana DeGarmo, Rhythm and Blues Diva Shayna Steele on October 10 Remains

New York, NY (PRWEB) October 10, 2006

“In Your Dreams,” the hot new teen musical that is the leading competitor to Disney Channel’s Billboard-topping “High School Musical,” sold out its October 9th showcase performance last night at the Ars Nova performance center in New York City, and has a single October 10th showcase of its 13 songs remaining, with a few tickets still available for the 2 p.m. show.

The showcase's lead singer Diana DeGarmo is currently featured in the lead role of Penny Pingleton in the Broadway version of “Hairspray,” while rhythm and blues artist Shayna Steele, who performs three songs in the show, began her singing career with memorable performances in “Hairspray,” “Rent” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” before launching her highly successful rhythm and blues solo career.

DeGarmo and Steele join a star-studded showcase cast that includes Michael Cunio (“The Fluffer,” “Hairspray”), Shannon Durig (Tracy Turnblad in “Hairspray”), Sloan Just (“On the Town,” “The Fully Monty”) and Betsy Morgan (“The Fantasticks”) Tabitha Fair, Blake Whyte -- and musical direction by Lon Hoyt.

“The ‘In Your Dreams’ showcase has turned out to be one of the hottest tickets of the fall showcase season,” notes Zeke Farrow, who created the new teen musical in partnership with Lucian Piane, the musical protégé of “Hairspray’s” Marc Shaiman. http://inyourdreamsthemusical.com/

“In Your Dreams” makes its New York City musical debut at a time when teen musicals are seeing a surge of interest from the Hollywood and Broadway entertainment communities, says Farrow. “We’ve been told that the music compares extremely favorably with teen musical hits of the past and present, including ‘Grease,’ ‘Hairspray,’ and even Disney Channel’s outrageously successful cable-only smash, ‘High School Musical.’”

Jason Eagan, director of the Ars Nova performance center, agrees, adding: "Zeke Farrow and Lucian Piane have written a gallant high school musical that kids will take their parents to. The combination of the massive musical talents of Piane and the outrageous people skills of Farrow have made this musical showcase a must-see for the Broadway musical community this fall.”

Ars Nova opened its doors three years ago in memory of Gabe Wiener with the goal of being a home for artists to develop and perform new works in an intimate audience setting. Since then some of New York’s top writers, directors and performers have walked through their doors with ideas and walked out with projects that were ready to be taken to the next level. Some of those names include Rufus Wainwright, David Cross, Sandra Bernhard, John Cameron Mitchell, Jason Biggs, Sarah Jessica Parker, Amy Sedaris, Paul Rudd, Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, The Wau Wau Sisters, Moises Kaufman, James Lapine, Tony Kushner, Stephen Belber, and Michael Patrick King.

“The musical has been greeted with an outpouring of enthusiasm by most who have read it -- including the producers of ‘Dreamgirls,’” notes the Miramax-linked Farrow. “I mean, a high school musical about a girl with multiple personalities running for prom queen? Even Oren Aviv will stand up and cheer when this movie becomes a box office smash.”

Adds Farrow: “It’s ‘Legally Blonde’ meets “Mean Girls’ -- but set to music. And so it’s pretty much an unbeatable combination.”

Concludes Farrow: "Everyone told me I was crazy for writing a high school musical. But it turns out my timing was perfect. Who doesn’t like to tell their agents, 'I told you so!'” http://broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=9263

According to many, the music of “In Your Dreams” compares most closely to the smash Disney hit “High School Musical, which, since premiering on the Disney Channel in the U.S. earlier this year, has become nothing short of a phenomenon, setting records around the world.

“Not since ‘Fame’ or ‘Grease’ or ‘Hairspray’ has a musical had such impact,” says Farrow. “Like my own musical, ‘High School Musical’ is rollicking and squeaky-clean, geared for a young and lucrative audience.” “Hairspray” will be released as an Adam Shankman-directed film in the summer of 2007, Farrow notes.

Disney’s cable-only “High School Musical” has been seen by over 40 million people, and it has earned a Guinness World Record for the most successful songs from a song track -- despite being produced on a $4.2 million production budget. With its popular songs and frenzied toe-tapping, “High School Musical” has become the most popular Disney Channel movie ever, says Farrow. “And we anticipate the same bright future for our own teen musical, 'In Your Dreams.'”

Directed by the man behind "Dirty Dancing," “High School Musical” took America by storm, landing six Emmy nominations, and is anticipated to do the same in the U.K. Says Farrow: “It kept singer James Blunt off the top of the U.S. album charts, outsold ‘Saturday Night Fever,’ and has become the biggest selling television soundtrack since the '80s hit ‘Miami Vice.’”

“My hope is that the Hollywood film industry will take notice of the October Ars Nova performances,” says Farrow. “My dream would be to get Diane Reichenberger, Bette Midler, Brangelina, James Stengel, Cyndi Lauper, Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Susan Lyne, Andrea Jung, Russ Klein, Nina Jacobson, and Elisabeth Murdoch into the same room to brainstorm the commercial future of this hot new musical. Then we’d really have some energy going on.”

One of the problems in getting a squeaky clean movie such as “In Your Dreams” produced in the current testosterone-heavy Hollywood atmosphere, says Farrow, is that half of the movies nowadays seem to be produced by Hollywood’s male industrial-military complex and the other half are based on scripts written by screenwriters who did coke with the major producers of the 1990s. http://youtube.com/watch?v=lv4Potdpjhw

“And so basically we are going after the third half,” says Farrow.

Among those in the entertainment community with a growing awareness of the significant market value that a rival to Disney Channel’s cable based “High School Musical” has to offer are Adam Epstein, Bill Veloric, Gary Gersh, Chris Boneau, Neil Pepe, John Buzzetti, Roland Skahill, Biff Liff, Susan Weaving, Jack Tantleff, Derek Zasky, Scott Rudin, Susan Gurman, Happy Birthday to Roy Crooks from Jeff Barge, Rich Banyard, Ken Reeb, Jeff Paulsen, Dave Morehouse, Susan Gerstner, Michael Cardonick, George Lane, Emily Mann, Doug Aibel, Michael Hartman, John Barlow, Arielle Tepper, Kevin McCollum, Jeffrey Seller, Ryan Hill, Kevin Huvane, Robyn Goodman, Tim Sanford, Chris Boneau, Bernie Telsey and Michael Gennaro.

And additionally, Dan Markley, Jill Furman, Roy Furman, Eric Falkenstein, Dan Karslake, Coats Guiles, Ginger Montel, Amy Nederlander, Michael Rego, Hank Unger, Jennifer Manocherian, Jo Porter, Margo Lion, Kevin McCollum, Jeffrey Seller, Adan Shankman, Alan Schuster, Daryl Roth, Jordan Roth, Randall Wreghitt, James Morgan, Rob Ahrens, Jeffrey Seller, Tom Kitt, David Zucker, Penny Marshall, Nathan Lane, Scott Marshall, Dualstar, Rosie O’Donnell, Garry Marshall, Bill Cosby, Michael Scott King, Meryl Streep, Ashley Olsen, and Matthew Broderick.

“And of course, Sarah Jessica Parker and Vanessa Taylor at Pretty Matches Productions, which is currently producing ‘The Washingtonienne,’ an HBO sitcom in which a strumpet from the future unexpectedly plummets 200 years back in time to Washington D.C. circa 2007 -- but lands on her feet in the U.S. Senate,” says Farrow. “It’s a classic storytelling device, first pioneered by Mark Twain in ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.’”

"Needless to say,” concludes Farrow, “she is immediately assisted by a Washington Insider.”

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