A raft of Broadway veterans will lead the regional tryout of new Broadway-bound musical Shucked, which plays Utah’s Pioneer Theatre Company this fall.
Leading the cast are Broadway alums John Behlmann, Kevin Cahoon, Caroline Innerbichler, Andrew Durand, Alex Newell, Ashley D. Kelley and Taylor Trensch.
The ensemble features Miki Abraham, Dwayne Clark, Rheaume Crenshaw, Kaitlyn Davidson, Jaygee Macapugay, Scott Stangland, Esteban Suero, Yasmeen Sulieman, Quinn VanAntwerp and Alan Wiggins.
Shucked begins performances October 28 and runs through November 12 at the Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre in Salt Lake City, Utah.
What do you get when you pair a semi-neurotic, New York comedy writer with two music superstars from Nashville? A hilarious and audacious farm-to-fable musical about the one thing Americans everywhere can’t get enough of: corn. (It’s corn!) Shucked is the new musical comedy that proves sometimes tearing down a few walls, rather than growing them, is the only way to preserve our way of life.
With an outrageously funny book by Tony Award-winner Robert Horn (Tootsie), an irresistible score by Grammy Award-winning songwriting team of Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, and direction by three-time Tony Award-winner Jack O’Brien, Shucked is about to turn Broadway on its ear and offer a kernel of hope for our divided nation.
The creative team includes Sarah O’Gleby as choreographer, Jason Howland as musical supervisor, Scott Pask as scenic designer, Tilly Grimes as costume designer, Japhy Weideman as lighting designer, John Shivers as sound designer, Daniel Edmonds as musical director/conductor and Mia Neal as hair and wig designer. Michelle Bosch is production stage manager.
In 2020, the New York Post reported that the show’s creators based Shucked on the long-running TV series Hee Haw, which combined corny comedy with country music. Since that 2020 interview, though, “the show has evolved in such a way that it no longer has anything to do with Hee Haw,” said Karen Azenberg, PTC’s artistic director.