Altar Boyz: Ravi Roth to play 'Abraham'

Ravi Roth is to join the cast of the Off-Broadway musical Altar Boyz on the 15 Oct 2008, playing the role of 'Abraham,' which he assumes from Ryan Strand.

Ravi joins the Broadway production after playing in the show at Cincinnati Playhouse and St. Louis Rep. His regional credits include 'john and jen,' 'Rocky Horror,' 'Bat Boy,' 'Seussical,' 'The Full Monty' and the Boston premiere of 'Edges.'

Altar Boyz is currently booking through to 1 Mar 2009 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 Neil Haskell (Luke), Michael Kadin Craig (Matthew), Mauricio Perez (Juan), Travis Nesbitt (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 reviews 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.