Tony winner Chuck Cooper, a handful of fellow Broadway alums, 14 high schoolers and more will join the previously announced Skylar Astin, Bianca Marroquín and Morgan Hernandez for Carnegie Hall’s presentation of West Side Story. Cooper takes on the role of Doc/Krupke, with Astin as Tony, Marroquín as Anita, Hernandez as Maria, Donald Jones Jr. as Bernardo, Manuel Stark as Riff and Peter Gerety as Schrank.
Performances are set for March 4 through March 6 at the Knockdown Center, a restored factory in Queens. Amanda Dehnert directs the production, which is the culmination of Carnegie Hall’s Somewhere Project, a citywide exploration of the musical by Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents.
Cooper won a Tony Award for The Life. His additional Broadway credits include Amazing Grace, Romeo and Juliet, Finian’s Rainbow, Lennon and Caroline, or Change; he recently appeared in Cabin in the Sky with City Center Encores!. Jones can currently be seen on Broadway in Aladdin, where he is making his Broadway debut. Stark made his Main Stem debut last season in Gigi; his additional credits include The Most Happy Fella and Little Me with Encores!. Gerety’s Great White Way credits include Lucky Guy, The Lieutenant of Inishmore and Never Gonna Dance.
The ensemble will include Alex Aquilino, Angel Blanco, Olutayo Bosede, Ariana Crowder, Karli Dinardo, Zack Everhart, Hannah Florence, Damon J. Gillespie, Sam Lips, Robin Masella, Raymond Joel Matsamura, Melissa Hunter McCann, Dashi Mitchell, Emilio Ramos, Julian Ramos, Alex Ringler, Sherisse Springer, Clay Thomson, James Tolbert, Jessica Walker, Michelle West and Ricardo Zayas. Additionally, 14 high school students from New York and New Jersey will join: Kaitlyn Benzant, Kendall Carter, Emanuel Figueroa, Alexis Garcia, Fabian Garcia, Sebastian Garcia, Reyna Guerra, Anijah Lezama, Alexa Maetta, Hallie Richardson, Sydney Richardson, Jillian Schear, Martina Viadana and Daniella Zunic.