Pump Up the Volume Is a Musical and We Are So On This

Bryce Ryness and Emily Padgett—Mazz and Paige—singing of their star-crossed love.

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Oh hey, it’s our favorite thing: A musical based on a noir-ish, sort-of teen movie. The Heathers reading blew our minds in 2010 – and introduced us to the creature who would become the sparkling Broadway powerhouse known as Jeremy Jordan. But this year, the must-get-in-at-all-costs concert reading was for a new musical version of Pump Up the Volume, the 1990 film starring Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis.

It’s written by Jeff Thomson (music) and Jeremy Desmon (book/lyrics) and the concert was held at Joe’s Pub on Monday night. And it was wicked loud. As one would expect. And it’s about an obnoxious radio DJ who’s actually just a sensitive, put-upon, obviously adorable teenage boy. In short, we were so there.

The central roles were each played by a number of rotating actors, so there was no single leading man to swoon over. We did, however, get to swoon over a whole cavalcade of amazing folks, including Bryce Ryness, Claybourne Elder, Nancy Opel, Leslie Odom, Jr., Constantine Maroulis, Emily Padgett, and Craptacular fav of favs, Andrew Call. Who is now also using the middle initial C, which clearly stands for Cute. Samantha Mathis* herself even turned up to say a few words, and Louis Hobson was hanging around, just as a fun bonus.

Click here to check out more video from the Pump Up the Volume reading.

*It must be noted that Samantha Mathis has onscreen smooched with two important Christians – Bale and Slater. Respect due forever.

Credit: Shoshana Feinstein