Illinois is widely considered Sufjan Stevens’ best album so far and it has a musical production based on it, which originally premiered in June 2023 in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.
Now, this production will make its NYC premiere in March of 2024, when it begins a run at Park Avenue Armory from March 2-23. Sufjan collaborator Justin Peck will again direct and choreograph, with music direction and supervision from Nathan Koci, music arrangements and orchestration by Timo Andres, scenic design by Adam Rigg, lighting design by Brandon Stirling Baker, sound design by Garth MacAleavey, costume design by Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung, props design by Andrew Diaz, and masks by Julian Crouch.
The musical features a new arrangement of Illinois for a live band and three voices by Timo Andres, with Sufjan Steven’s music and lyrics, and Peck wrote the story with playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury.
“Dancer, choreographer, and director Justin Peck has assembled an impressive body of creative projects, starting out as a soloist with New York City Ballet and moving on to create work for that company and prestigious companies from around the world, as well as on Broadway with Carousel and Stephen Spielberg’s acclaimed film West Side Story. The Tony Award-winner embraces Stevens’s album in an ecstatic pageant of storytelling, theater, dance, and live music with a cast of virtuosic dancers, singers, and musicians with a narrative crafted with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury (Fairview, Marys Seacole). Featuring new arrangements of the entire album by composer and pianist Timo Andres for a live band and three voices, ranging in style from DIY folk and indie rock to marching band and ambient electronics, this bold, new music-theater production leads audiences on a mighty journey through the American heartland, from campfire storytelling to the edges of the cosmos.”
