Description
The inspiration for the NBC TV series “Rise,” starring Josh Radnor, Auli’i Cravalho, and Rosie Perez — the implausible and true story of an atypical drama teacher who has changed the lives of thousands of scholars and inspired a the town.
Why would the multimillionaire producer of Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, and Miss Saigon take his limo from Manhattan to the struggling former steel the town of Levittown, Pennsylvania, To look a high school production of Les Misérables?
To look the show performed by the astoundingly successful theater company at Harry S Truman High School, run by its legendary director, Lou Volpe. Broadway turns to Truman High when trying out controversial shows such as Rent and Spring Awakening before they move on to school theater programs around the nation. Volpe’s students from this blue-collar the town go on to turn into Emmy-winning producers, entertainment executives, newscasters, and community-theater founders.
Michael Sokolove, a Levittown native and former student of Volpe’s, chronicles the drama director’s last school years and follows a group of student actors as they work through riveting dramas both off and on the stage. This can be a story of an economically depressed but proud the town finding hope in a gifted teacher and the magic of theater.