{"id":158951,"date":"2026-04-06T23:44:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T23:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/158951\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T23:44:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T23:44:30","slug":"benjamin-velez-and-joel-perezs-lost-city-radio-to-receive-staged-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/158951\/","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin Velez and Joel Perez&#8217;s Lost City Radio to Receive Staged Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Rhinebeck Writers Retreat (RWR), in partnership with NEW NEXT NOW, will host a staged reading of the new musical\u00a0Lost City Radio next month.<\/p>\n<p>With book by Joel Perez (Fun Home) and music and lyrics by Tony nominee <a data-crosslink=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/playbill.com\/person\/benjamin-velez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Benjamin Velez<\/a> (Real Women Have Curves), Lost City Radio is\u00a0based on the 2007 novel of the same name\u00a0by Daniel Alarc\u00f3n. The piece follows\u00a0Norma, a radio host in a country where radio is the only source of media. Ten years after a failed attempt to overthrow the military regime, what started as a radio show meant to find people who have disappeared during the war has become a propaganda machine for the state. Norma&#8217;s own husband was one of the &#8220;disappeared,&#8221; but when a young orphan named Victor shows up at her radio station with a clue to her husband&#8217;s whereabouts, the two must work together to learn the truth and perhaps form their own family in the process. <\/p>\n<p>The reading will be directed by Tony nominee <a data-crosslink=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/playbill.com\/person\/leigh-silverman-vault-0000019208\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Leigh Silverman<\/a> (Suffs), with music direction by PJ Ju (Big Gay Jamboree).\u00a0The musical has been selected for RWR\u2019s Triple R Program, with the staged reading produced by the two organizations presented on May 14.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were blown away by Benjamin and Joel\u2019s piece\u2014both the artistry of their writing, and the urgency of the story they are telling,\u201d says RWR Executive Director Erica Rotstein and NEW NEXT NOW co-founders <a data-crosslink=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/playbill.com\/person\/jesse-kissel-vault-0000123015\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jesse Kissel<\/a> and <a data-crosslink=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/playbill.com\/person\/jeff-whiting-vault-0000004680\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jeff Whiting<\/a> in a joint statement. \u201cBecause our organizations share a commitment to offering emerging theatre writers safe, artist-driven spaces where they feel supported and inspired to create bold new works, we\u2019re especially excited to partner in supporting Benjamin and Joel, and hope this marks the beginning of many collaborations together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The reading will be cast by\u00a0Andrew Fem, with general management by Sing Out, Louise! Productions. Casting will be announced at a later date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rhinebeck Writers Retreat (RWR), in partnership with NEW NEXT NOW, will host a staged reading of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-158951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}