The Hills Are Alive!

Performance times:
Friday, May 18; 9 pm
Saturday, May 19; 12 noon and 8 pm
Sunday, May 20; 6 pm

Appropriate for ages 13+.

Performances will be at Foster Hall.

To reserve free tickets for The Hills Are Alive!, please visit our event page at Brown Paper Tickets onlineor call Brown Paper Tickets at 1-800-838-3006. Donations will be gratefully accepted during the event.

Imagine trying to escape the Nazis with seven children. Across the Alps. By foot. With only the clothes on your back. While singing... all the while suspecting that...

The Hills Are Alive logo

The Hills Are Alive! is a new musical dark comedy. It follows the story of a prominent Austrian musical family who, in their attempt to flee the Nazis, decide to cross the Alps into Switzerland. On foot. With seven children. And no supplies. All the while singing. Along the way, they encounter many obstacles, including wild animals, strange mountain people, sibling rivalry, poisonous berries, etc. Will they survive? Will their relationships remain intact? And most importantly, where is that yodeling coming from?

Written and composed by
Eric Thomas Johnson and Frankie Johnson. Learn more at www.thehillsarealivemusical.com.

Ashley Ball

Cast Member

Ashley Ball hails from the most rocky of mountains in Alberta, Canada, but is now very happy to call New York her home. She received her diploma in Theatre Arts Performance from Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, and her B.Mus. in Musical Theater Performance from Arizona State University. Her foray to the New York stage was as Olga Brandt in Stage Door (Chelsea Rep. Theater). Favorite regional credits include: Dot in Sunday in the Park with George, Ilona in She Loves Me (both ASU Lyric Opera Theater), Shelby Thorpe in The Spitfire Grill (Leave it to Jane), and Ophelia in Hamlet (Theatre Prospero). You can also see her on the tee-vee as the Season One host of Rhythm and Roots (Ebru TV), and on Battlestar Galactica, Gossip Girl, CollegeHumor.com's Morning Musical, and You Don't Know Jack (with Al Pacino, dir. Barry Levinson). Many, many thanks to Eric and Frankie!

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Lauren Berger

Cast Member

Lauren Aliya Berger was born and raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio and moved to New York to attend Barnard College, Columbia University. In addition to receiving a degree in English, she studied at The Stella Adler Studio of Acting and completed their conservatory program. Her New York and Regional credits include: Something Outrageous at the 45th Street Theatre, Ragtime, Jekyll & Hyde, Our Town, and A Christmas Carol. Her London credits include: Cinderella in Into the Woods (UCL Bloomsbury Theatre), Cosette in Les Miserables, and Oklahoma!(UCL Bloomsbury Theatre). Lauren participated in the reading of The Hills Are Alive! in December 2011 and is very excited to continue working on this great show

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Daniele Hager

Cast Member

Daniele is a New York based Opera singer. Originally from Mexico City, Mexico, Daniele’s love for music began at a very young age. She holds a Bachelors degree and a Masters degree both in Opera Performance from SUNY Purchase and Florida State University. Daniele was recently seen as Creuse for Opera Nova Costa Rica's production of Médée in Costa Rica. Other roles include: Despina in Così fan tutte, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Yum-Yum in The Mikado, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Maria in West Side Story, Catherine in Pippin among others. Daniele is thrilled to be part of this incredible new musical and feels honored to be working with such wonderful performers. Daniele is also the founder of the new organization "We Sing For The World" which is designed to organize benefit concerts for non-profit organizations such as AmeriCares.

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Eric Thomas Johnson

Composer

Eric Thomas Johnson, composer, has had works premiered in cities across the United States and abroad, including New York, Minneapolis, Nashville, Cincinnati, Innsbruck (Austria), to name a few. He was winner of the 2006 Emil Beyer NFMC National Composition Competition for Best Song Cycle for Lieder der Geliebte. He is currently working in the musical theatre genre. In addition to musical theatre, he has written music for plays, including The Barber of Seville and more recently, Aristophanes' Frogs, produced by Fault Line Theatre in Manhattan.

As a music director and conductor, his credits include Chicago (Cortland Repertory Theatre), Closer Than Ever (2010 Phoenicia Festival of the Voice), The Cradle Will Rock (Theater Ten Ten), The Wiz (Harlem Repertory Theatre), The Last Five Years (2009 Piccolo Spoleto Festival), Little Shop of Horrors, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, and An Evening with Rodgers and Hammerstein, featuring guest speaker Oscar Hammerstein III. He received a 2009 AUDELCO Award nomination for Oustanding Musical Direction for The Wiz.

He has worked on a variety of projects as arranger/producer as well, including Going Green!, an educational album for children (available nationwide and at www.amazon.com).

He holds a Masters Degree in Music from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, a Bachelors Degree in Music from Vanderbilt University and a diploma with concentration in piano from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

For more information, visit his website at www.ericthomasjohnson.com.

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Frankie Johnson

Lyricist, Cast Member

Frankie Johnson is a musical theater librettist/lyricist, actress and singer currently living and working in New York City. As an actress, she has been seen in various productions in regional theatre and in NYC, most recently in Eugene Ionesco's The Future Is in Eggs and Luigi Pirandello's Sicilian Limes. Additional credits include: Eurydice, Faith, Hope & Charity, The Complete History of America (abridged), Hay Fever, Biloxi Blues, The Pirates of Penzance, among others.

She also performs as a comedic improviser around NYC.

As a singer, she has performed as a recitalist and soloist in various cities across the country and has recorded vocals for a variety of projects. She was also a co-arranger/producer of the educational album Going Green!

She holds a degree from Vanderbilt University, where she studied music and theatre.

Visit www.frankie-johnson.com for more details.

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Christopher Tiernan

Cast Member

Christopher Tiernan is honored to be a part of this hysterical new production. He is new to New York City and is excited to have this be the first project he's worked on here. Chris is originally from Los Angeles where he first started acting and singing at a young age. Recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin Madison, where he studied theater, Chris was a member of the a cappella group Funadmentally Sound. He was also able to perform in many productions as FrankNFurter in The Rocky Horror Show, Cinderellas Prince in Into the Woods, and Jeff in [Title of Show], among other credits.

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Trenton Weaver

Cast Member

Trenton I. Weaver is a recent graduate from Otterbein University with a B.F.A. in Musical Theatre. He has performed with the Nantucket Dreamland Foundation, Otterbein Summer Theatre, and has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where he was part of the European debut of "With Their Eyes: A View from a High School at Ground Zero." Other credits include The Wild Party, Pippin, and Don't Dress for Dinner.

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Maggie Wetzel

Cast Member

Maggie Wetzel moved to NYC in 2010 after graduating with a BFA in musical theater from Webster Conservatory. Some of her NYC credits include Ramona Quimby Two Beans Productions, A Chorus Line Crown and Scepter and Velma Gratch and the Way Cool Butterfly Vital Theater. Other past favorite roles are Margot Frank Diary of Anne Frank, Peter Pan Peter Pan, Penny Pingleton Hairspray and Amy Company. She is so excited to be working on such a fun funky show and sends gratitude to Frankie and Eric, the cast and her friends and family. Love, love, love.

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Becky Whitcomb

Cast Member

Becky Whitcomb is ecstatic to be joining the cast for this hilarious new musical! Most recently, Becky has been performing in cabarets with Brandon Cutrell & Cohorts (Laurie Beechman Theatre) and Broadway Meets Harlem Meer (Poets Den Theatre). She has also been getting her freak on as a featured soloist in the upcoming disco extravaganza Disco Daze (Robert Donnell Productions)!
Becky is a recent graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy.
Check out her professional entertainer page on Facebook: Becky Whitcomb. Professional website coming December 2011.

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Reserve FREE tickets for The Hills Are Alive!

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