Altar Boyz to Play Dodger Stages Beginning February 15

Altar Boyz, which premiered earlier this fall at the New York Musical Theatre Festival, has found an off-Broadway home at Dodger Stages. The show will begin preview performances at the venue on February 15 in preparation for a February 27 opening.

Altar Boyz is a musical comedy about a struggling Christian boy-band riding the wave of America's latest fascination with religion. Armed with catchy melodies, freaky moves and product in their hair, the self-anointed apostles of pop Matthew, Mark, Luke, Juan... and Abraham, who is Jewish bring their soul-saving tour to New York City, where they will sing their hits, including "Girl, You Make Me Wanna Wait" and "Jesus Called Me On My Cell Phone." Conceived by Marc Kessler and Ken Davenport, Altar Boyz has a score by Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker and a book by Kevin Del Aguila.

The new musical, directed by Stafford Arima and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, was a popular hit when it ran for a limited number of performances at the 47th Street Theatre as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival. William Stevenson in his Broadway.com Review wrote: "The songs, by Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker, are bouncy pop tunes with comically devout lyrics. 'God put the rhythm in me so I could bust a move,' Luke sings. But Kevin Del Aguila's book, which consists primarily of between-song patter, is very slight. The religious jokes wear thin after a while and there's almost no plot. The only leitmotifs are Juan's search for his family and a soul-saving machine called the DX12 that keeps track of how many audience members' souls have been cleansed during the performance. There's a good jab at the trend of boy-band members going solo, though. Fortunately, most of the 90-minute show consists of the dozen musical numbers, which manage to be both amusing spoofs and lively songs."

Ryan Duncan, Cheyenne Jackson, David Josefsberg, Andy Karl and Tyler Maynard appeared in the show at the festival. With the exception of Jackson, who is busy with All Shook Up, they are all expected to reprise their roles in this mounting.