Asolo Rep Presents Inside Asolo Rep: South Pacific on Wednesday, November 5, 2014; featuring the musical’s director, Rob Ruggiero, and music director, William Waldrop

WHAT:

Discover what it takes to bring Asolo Rep’s upcoming production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, South Pacific, to the stage. This insightful program will feature the musical’s director, Rob Ruggiero, and music director, William Waldrop. Asolo Rep’s dramaturg/literary manager, Lauryn Sasso, will guide this illuminating panel discussion, which will explore Ruggiero’s approach to this intimate production and the musical’s brand new orchestrations created especially for Asolo Rep by Brad Haak.

WILLIAM WALDROP (Music Director/Conductor) is a music director, conductor, composer and pianist. Broadway credits include Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella and the recent revival of Evita. He has been the music director/conductor for the national tours of Evita (Broadway Revival), The Phantom of The Opera (Music Box Company), and Cats. Off-Broadway credits include Donnybrook! and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. In Las Vegas, credits include Phantom and Hedwig and The Angry Inch. William’s songs have been featured in cabarets and theatres across the country, including New York City’s Birdland, The Laurie Beechman Theatre, The Duplex, and New World Stages. William holds degrees from The Peabody Conservatory of Music (MM) and The University of Mississippi (BM).

Come away to a lush, remote island in the South Pacific during World War II where U.S. Navy officers, Seabees and nurses discover and embrace unfamiliar people and cultures in a place so very far from home. Cockeyed optimist Nellie Forbush, a nurse from Little Rock, Arkansas, falls deeply in love with Frenchman Emile De Becque, a widowed plantation owner who has lived on the island for many years with his biracial children. But their enchanted love story is threatened by Nellie’s racist roots that she so deeply wants to outgrow. Ivy League hero Lt. Joseph Cable must also face his own moral struggle when he becomes enraptured with Liat, a beautiful island girl.

The original 1949 Broadway production, based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Tales of the South Pacific, by James A. Michener, garnered 10 Tony Awards®, including a still unprecedented sweep of all four acting categories. The acclaimed 2008 Lincoln Center Theater production received seven Tony Awards, the most of any musical revival.

South Pacific opens Friday, November 14, 2014 at 8pm, with previews Tuesday, November 11 at 7:30pm and Wednesday, November 12 and Thursday, November 13, 2014 at 8pm. The 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Drama winner will run through the holiday season and close Sunday, December 28, 2014.