Olney Theatre Center produces the world premiere of Senior Class, a new musical, on the Roberts Mainstage May 16 – June 22, 2025 in association with Kevin Duda Productions, Inc. The book and lyrics are by Melvin Tunstall III with music by Tunstall and Greg Dean Borowsky (Polkadots: The Cool Kids Musical), and the concept for the musical is by Kevin Duda, who proposed it to Tunstall while the two were both performing in the Broadway ensemble for Beautiful – The Carole King Musical. By coincidence, the production is directed by Amy Anders Corcoran, who directed the resident regional premiere of Beautiful at Olney Theatre last season. Emmy Award-winner Karla Puno Garcia is the choreographer, and Dolores Duran-Cefalu music directs the world premiere. Tickets are available to the public from $41 – $101 and can be purchased at olneytheatre.org/seniorclass or by calling the box office at 301-924-3400.
About the show
When budget cuts to the arts program mean their high school theater can’t pay for the rights to My Fair Lady, G.B. (Jeffrey Cornelius) and Colin (Bradley Adam Stein), two Broadway-obsessed students, decide to stage their own original musical version of Shaw’s Pygmalion which, as the source for the Lerner and Loewe classic, is in the public domain. The search for an actress to play their Eliza Doolittle leads them to a Harlem-born-and-bred subway dancer named Alizé (Lauryn Adams) who just might be perfect — but artistic egos and high school hierarchies threaten to undermine the production before the big opening night. As they mount their production of My Leading Lady: A New Pygmalion… with a Preface and Sequel (Shavians will get the reference), the class and gender divides of Shaw’s original emerge in surprising ways. Can the Senior Class musical be saved? (And will Colin win his much-wished-for “Jimmy” Award, launching his meteoric rise to stardom as the first-ever J-EGOT?) Senior Class combines high voltage dancing with Broadway savvy to deliver Shaw’s timeless debate in a contemporary setting.
Genesis of the Project
For Kevin Duda, the creation of Senior Class began backstage during the run of the Broadway musical, Beautiful – The Carole King Musical. “Both Melvin and I were in the ensemble for almost its entire 5-year run,” he explains. “I was having a lot of conversations around race, class, equal rights, and other social activism points. I really wanted to do something theatrical that incorporated all of these ideas and ideals. It occurred to me that My Fair Lady was a classic example of social structures and class systems. Strangely connected to that, my first show on Broadway as an actor was in the original cast of The Book of Mormon, and I was a fan of Matt & Trey’s ability to deal with all of these very mature topics using the South Park kids. I thought about it for a while and then, one day at 5-minutes-to-places for the show, just blurted out to Melvin, what if we did a contemporary retelling of Pygmalion but used students to reframe it and allow them to deal with these very elevated situations from their own, unique and very powerful point-of-view?”
Tunstall went to work on the first twenty pages and modeled the two main characters, GB and Colin, on himself and Duda. “He essentially imagined us as best friends in high school,” Duda comments. Greg Dean Borowsky, Tunstall’s partner on Polkadots – The Cool Kids Musical (along with Douglas Lyons), was brought aboard shortly thereafter. A public reading was first held in 2017, and subsequent presentations at the NAMT Festival in 2018 and 2021, and a two-week workshop at the Institute for American Musical Theatre in 2023 followed.
As the first full production approaches, Kevin Duda says, “I am so thrilled that we have found such an incredible partner in the Olney Theatre for the World Premiere of Senior Class. Not only will it be exciting to see these young performers bring to life these iconic characters, but we are equally thrilled to weave in discussions of race & class in our show, which is as important now as it’s ever been.” In a full-circle moment, Duda recalls that his own history as a performer includes a production of West Side Story at Olney Theatre 25 years ago.
In addition to Stein as Colin, Cornelius as G.B., and Adams as Alizé, the 20-person cast includes Quadry Brown, Wynter Nicole Cook, Mia Goodman, Ciara Hargrove, Angelo Harrington II, Santina Maiolatesi, Nico Nazal, Ashley D. Nguyen, Jacob Pelzman-Kern, Connor James Reilly, Russell Rinker, Alanna Sibrián, David Singleton, Taryn Smithson, Jordyn Taylor, Taylor J. Washington, and Gwynne Wood. Swings for the production are Ariel Kraje, Nat Mitchell, Haley Nachlas, and Bryan Stopak.
Joining Corcoran, Garcia, and Duran-Cefalu on the creative are: Sam Young (Orchestrations), Lawrence E. Moten III (Set Design), Kendra Rai (Costume Design), Colin K. Bills (Lighting Design), LaShawn Melton (Wig Design), Kevin Alexander (Sound Design), Christopher Youstra (Associate Music Director/Conductor), Lauren Davis (Assistant Director), Erin Speer (Script Associate), Voltaire Wade-Green (Associate Choreographer), Danielle DeLaFuente (Associate Set Designer), Kasey Brown (Assistant Costume Designer), Yannick Godts (Assistant Light Designer).
Senior Class runs May 16 – June 22, 2025 on the Roberts Mainstage at Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD 20832. Tickets: $35 – $110 available at olneytheatre.org/seniorclass and 301-924-3400. Discounts for teachers, active military, and first responders are available at: olneytheatre.org/discounts
Performance Schedule
Wednesday through Saturday evenings at 7:30 pm.
Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday matinees at 1:30 pm.
Select Sunday evenings at 7:00 pm.
See the full schedule at: https://tickets.olneytheatre.org/seniorclass
Accessible Performances
Audio-Described Performance – Wednesday, June 4, at 7:30pm
ASL Interpreted Performance – Thursday, June 5, at 7:30 pm
ABOUT OLNEY THEATRE CENTER
Mission
Olney Theatre Center for the Arts produces and curates theatrical performance for the diverse audiences in its community, and educates, learns from, supports and inspires a more inclusive generation of theater-makers.
Vision
Olney Theatre Center strives to become an arts and culture powerhouse, redefining the American regional theater movement by cultivating and sharing the creativity of our community.
History
Founded in 1938 as a summer playhouse, Olney Theatre Center (OTC) now produces world and American premieres of plays and musicals, and reimaginings of familiar titles year-round; presents the work of leading companies and artists; tours nationally and locally; teaches students of all ages; and mentors a more inclusive generation of theatermakers. For more than 8 decades, OTC has brought impactful theater performance and education to its community, helping to grow the vibrancy and vitality of the Washington, DC region.
Over the years, some of the biggest names in theater and film have appeared on Olney stages, including Tallulah Bankhead, Helen Hayes, Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, Bob Fosse, Phillip Bosco, Eve Arden, Eva Gabor, Burl Ives, Jose Ferrer, Carol Channing, Olivia d’Havilland, Tony Randall, Paulette Goddard, Dorothy and Lillian Gish, Jane Seymour, Anne Revere, Frances Sternhagen, Arthur Treacher, James Broderick, Olympia Dukakis, Sir Ian McKellen, Marica Gay Harden, John Colicos, Uzo Aduba, Alan Cumming, Cheyenne Jackson, Robin de Jesus, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Bernadette Peters, among many, many others.
Olney Theatre is now the cultural anchor of a rapidly changing region and serves one of the most diverse, best educated, and wealthiest counties in the country. Situated on the unceded land of the Piscataway-Conoy people, the Olney area was once a rural farming community with a unique Quaker heritage. Now the area is occupied by every kind of family that makes up 21st Century America, along with major corporations, shopping districts, civic associations, non profit organizations and a diverse collection of houses of worship. Montgomery County’s 1 million residents play a dynamic role in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, and are a driving force behind the region’s creative economy.
Olney Theatre Center employs 45 full time staff, 20+ part-time positions, 13 early career apprentices, and more than 400 professional artists annually. The Theatre is currently in the final phase of a $36M capital campaign to build new infrastructure that better meets the needs of its community.