Altar Boyz: Chad Doreck to play Matthew

Chad Doreck, who was one of the contestants in the TV reality show "Grease: You're the One that I Want!" is to join the cast of the Off-Broadway musical Altar Boyz on the 3 Sep 2007 playing the role of Matthew, which he assumes from Matthew Buckner.

Altar Boyz is currently booking through to 2 Mar 2007 at New World Stages / Stage 4, where it opened on the 1 Mar 2005, following previews from the 15 Feb.

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 (He's Jewish) bring their soul-saving tour to New York City, with their heavenly hits like �Girl, You Make Me Wanna Wait� and �Jesus Called Me On My Cell Phone�.

Currently starring in the show are Landon Beard, Matthew Buckner (Matthew), Jay Garcia (Juan), Ryan J Ratliff (Mark) and Ryan Strand (Abraham).

Conceived by Marc Kessler and Ken Davenport, Altar Boyz has a score by Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker with book by Kevin Del Aguila.

The musical is directed by Stafford Arima and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, with set designs by Anna Louizos, lighting design by Natasha Katz, and sound design by Peter Hylenski. Lynne Shankel is the music director and Co-Orchestrator.

The show received mostly Good to luke-warm notices from the popular press. Click Here to read Polly Wittenberg's review and what the other critcs said about the musical.

Altar Boyz received the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical Off-Broadway and earned Christopher Gattelli the 2005 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreographer.