Hamilton meets The Post in this extraordinary new musical, Harvard’s first-ever show at the Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland
A cast of eight students from Harvard Dramatic Club are taking part in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland this week for the international premiere of Atalanta, a spectacular new musical by Harvard Student Mira-Rose Kingsbury Lee which enjoyed a sold-out run at the Loeb Drama Centre of Boston’s American Repertory Theatre in April this year.
The Harvard students are: Sophie Garrigus from Los Angeles (as lead as Sarina Lemonde); Matt Given from Southampton UK (as Lead Charlie Saltman); Conall McGinn from Belfast, Northern Ireland (as Daniel Lemonade); Onovughakpor Otitigbe from New York (as Miriam Lemonde); Lucas Pao from NYC (as Ben Bailey), Neha Kalra from New Jersey (as Jane Valenti), Vander Ritchie from Salida, Colorado (as William Harding), and Louis Zekowski from Los Angeles (as Jack Harding)
Written, composed, and performed entirely by students at Harvard University, Atalanta offers an unforgettable genre-blending soundtrack which will stick in your head long after you leave the theatre. Moving and hilarious in equal measure, full of political intrigue, lavender marriages, and blackmail, Atalanta is a show about persevering in the face of overwhelming uncertainty and impossible decisions; about the intricate webs of love and obligation in one unconventional family; about a remarkable young woman leader bringing her beloved newspaper into the modern age.
Mira-Rose Kingsbury Lee, who is studying microbiology and history at Harvard, says: “It’s such a privilege to be bringing Atalanta across the pond, and making Harvard’s debut at the Edinburgh Fringe! I’ve been writing Atalanta for about 10 years, almost as long as I’ve been a Fringe festival-goer. In fact, it was seeing the incredible outpouring of creative energy at the Fringe which first inspired me to try to put the show up in Boston. So, coming off our sold-out run at the American Repertory Theatre, it seemed only fitting that we put this show up where it all started.
“All thanks to the fantastic cast and Henry Wu, my musical director and partner in crime, for bringing this show to life. It’s a Harvard debut worthy of the name.”
“Gritty and engaging…a cleverly written piece of theatre, which seldom, if ever, gives into stereotypes, producing instead nuanced characters” (London Theatre1, August 15, 2023)
‘Hats off… a touching story that sticks’ (The Harvard Independent, April 27 2023)
“Atalanta combines jazz, hip-hop,rock, and the music of golden-age Broadway into an “eclectic mix of catchy tunes,” “reminiscent of Harold Hill in ‘The Music Man’ or rap segments in ‘Hamilton’” (The Harvard Crimson April 4 2023)
“Stylish and jazzy, packed with complex characters and well-executed songs (The Harvard Independent, April 2023)
Atalanta is set in New York, 1969 where Sarina Lemonde is a news editor at the struggling Atalanta Post, living a quiet, respectable life, with no plans of changing that anytime soon. But, one ordinary night in February, it all goes upside-down: her wealthy, estranged mother sweeps back into her life, seeking to buy the newspaper; her closeted husband begins an ill-advised affair with a Post executive; and Sarina is unexpectedly installed as the first female president of the Atalanta Post.
Atalanta The Musical is showing daily in the Fleming Theatre at Surgeons’ Hall until Saturday 19 August.
The cast and crew of Atalanta thank the Open Gate Foundation and our GoFundMe (https://www.gofundme.com/f/atalanta) for their generous support of this production of Atalanta at the Edinburgh Fringe.
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