Exclusive! Will Swenson to Lead Developmental Reading of Brave New World: The Musical

Will Swenson
(Photo: Bruce Glikas) Broadway.com can exclusively reveal that Tony nominee Will Swenson (Hair) and Tony Winner Beth Leavel (The Drowsy Chaperone) will lead a private developmental reading of Brave New World: The Musical in midtown Manhattan early next month. Thomas Caruso, who helmed the developmental premier in North Carolina, has been tapped to provide direction for this upcoming reading as well.

The stage adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s novel will feature a book by Ben Andron, music by Jonnie Rockwell and John McDaniel and lyrics Bill Russell. The cast is also set to include Dave Thomas Brown, Gerard Canonico and Tess Soltau.

In the futuristic dystopian Brave New World: The musical, love, art, faith—the things that make us human—have been abolished in favor of sex, drugs, and constant distraction. World Controller Thomas Mond (Swenson), the ringleader and puppet-master of this world, is responsible for keeping his genetically engineered citizens happy, content, and distracted at all times. But when two of his subjects, Lenina (Soltau) and Bernard (Canonico) journey to a savage reservation, and return with a mysterious savage, John (Brown), and his even more mysterious mother, Linda (Leavel), the foundations of Controller Mond's World State will be rocked to its core.

Brad Simmons will be the music director for the reading, with John McDaniel providing musical arrangements and supervision.