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[b]Homer Hickam's Memoir Rocket Boys In Musical Premiere[/b] The "rocket's red glare" will illuminate Huntsville, AL this Memorial Day weekend as Rocket Boys, a new musical based on the NY Times #1 bestseller by Homer Hickam, presents its first full concert reading at Merrimack Hall Performing Arts Center. Actors from both New York and Alabama will participate in the launch of this new work. Included in this special theatrical experience will be a brief welcome by Mr. Hickam just prior to the reading. The cast and creative team will also meet and greet the audience afterward. Rocket Boys, Homer Hickam's 1998 memoir of his life growing up in a West Virginia coal mining town is considered a classic, assigned in nearly every school system across the country, one of the most picked books nationally for community/library reads, translated into many languages, and adapted into the award-winning movie October Sky. In the memoir, Homer (called Sonny then) is inspired as he watches Sputnik, the world's first space satellite, streak across the 1957 October sky. To the consternation of the citizens of the little mining town of Coalwood, he and several boyhood friends decide to join the space race by building rockets, thus launching themselves and the entire community on an unexpected and dramatic trajectory. Mr. Hickam not only became a NASA engineer but the author of many highly-successful novels. "I never imagined," he says, "that my memoir of teenage rocket building in the mountains of West Virginia would not only be a hugely successful book but then be adapted into a movie and now a theatrical musical. Clearly, it is a story that has touched millions of people in many different and powerful ways." Mr. Hickam and his wife Linda are long-time residents of Huntsville, and are thrilled that the musicalized stageplay of his memoir will reach an entirely new audience of people around the world looking not only for good foot-stomping entertainment but the inspiration and courage to follow their dreams. The musical adaptation of Rocket Boys has already ignited an overwhelmingly positive reaction from the theatre community. With a score by Dan Tramon and Diana Belkowski, stage adaptation by Christopher Budinich, and direction by Carl Anthony Tramon, it has already received numerous awards. It was one of just three winners to receive the coveted ANMT Search for New Musicals Award in Los Angeles, and was recently a winner of the ASCAP / Disney Musical Theatre Workshop in New York, with Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Godspell, Rags, Pippin) at the helm. It was the Composer/Lyricist team's second consecutive win (unprecedented for this award), having won the previous year with their show Flyer, about the lives of the Wright Brothers. NY Producer John O'Boyle (Radio Golf, A Catered Affair, Is He Dead) is an active member of the team and is guiding the show's progress. "This project has absolutely unlimited commercial potential," observes Mr. O'Boyle, who has been a cheerleader for the show from the start. The show is especially fueled by the commitment of the author himself, and the script is being developed in close consultation with Mr. Hickam. This early concert rendition will be an exciting "sneak-peek" of the coming full production, which will undoubtedly inspire countless rocket boys and girls for light years to come. For more information visit the production's website.
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