Altar Boyz plays its 500th performance

Altar Boyz celebrates its 500th performance this evening (12 May 2006).

The musical comedy opened at New World Stages (Formerly called Dodger Stages) on the 1 Mar 2005, following previews from the 15 Feb and is currently booking to the 10 Sep 2006.

Altar Boyz is the third longest running musical off-Broadway musical currently running. Altar Boyz is 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�.

Starring in the show are Ryan Duncan (Juan), Dennis Moench (Abraham), Jason Celaya (Matthew), Tyler Maynard (Mark), 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. You can read Polly Wittenberg's review and what other theatre critcs said about the musical here.

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