Jenn Colella will play Stacy in an industry reading of Nearly Neighbors, a new chamber musical by Joshua Vranas, in New York on November 20. A first song from the score, Mo(u)rning, is out now as a music video sung by Colella.
Jade King Carroll directs the reading. Sujin Kim-Ramsey is music director, Addie Saltz is casting director, and Nikita Chernin and Ash Marie Alina are the lead producers. Vranas wrote the book, music and lyrics.
The piece is scored for solo piano and plays out over twelve months on two balconies that face each other in Hell's Kitchen. Rachel, a tech founder who has just made it, moves into a new luxury apartment and finds herself looking across at Stacy, a New Yorker of long standing who is in no mood to be dazzled. Over the year their exchanges go from irritation to conversation, and Rachel eventually talks Stacy into helping her build a new business. Playbill reports that Stacy is still grieving her wife, who died four years earlier.
Rachel has not been cast. The producers held a nationwide open call for the role last month, which drew around 500 submissions, according to Playbill. Colella said the wider search was part of the appeal: "There are so many extraordinary actors who haven't yet had access to the rooms where these opportunities usually happen, and I love that we're widening the search for Rachel."
Colella recently starred on Broadway as Carrie Chapman Catt in Suffs, a role that earned her a Drama League nomination. She was nominated for a Tony for Come From Away, in which she played Captain Beverley Bass and won the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards, and she won a Grammy for her work on the Dear Evan Hansen cast recording. On television she plays Captain Alison Kershaw in CBS's Elsbeth.
Carroll is producing artistic director of Chautauqua Theater Company and has worked on every play in August Wilson's Century Cycle. Kim-Ramsey was music director of KPOP on Broadway and Off-Broadway. Vranas, a graduate of the NYU Tisch musical theater writing program, recently played a sold-out concert of his musical My Pet Dragon at Joe's Pub.
The November 20 reading is for industry guests, who attend by RSVP. No public performances or tickets have been announced. The Mo(u)rning video premiered on Playbill's YouTube channel.
