Altar Boyz: Zach Hanna assumes the role of Mark

Zach Hanna is to play the role of Mark, from 5 Jun 2006, in the off-Broadway musical Altar Boyz. Zach Hanna created the role of Mark in the Detroit and Des Moines companies of the musical.

The musicals current Mark, played by Tyler Maynard, leaves the show on 4 Jun 2006 to join the ensemble of Mary Poppins.

Altar Boyz is currently booking to the 10 Sep 2006 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�.

Also starring in the show are Dennis Moench (Abraham), Jason Celaya (Matthew), Tyler Maynard (Mark) and Andrew C. Call (Luke).

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