Tuesdays with Corti: MDQ Cast

It’s a stunningly beautiful morning in Aurora, and just as gorgeous is the low-down for you here on Paramount Theatre’s cast for Million Dollar Quartet​! Casting Director Trent Stork has canvassed a network nation-wide as the character breakdown for this baby calls for super human skills. Trent has hooked us up with an international talent pool, and enough cannot be said for his achievement in working with agents from all over the country. Portraying the 20 something personas of four of Rock ‘N’ Roll’s greatest icons requires looking right, sounding right and playing musically like nobody’s got a right to. This quartet is made up of downright beasts! 

Kavan Hashmenian, our “Elvis Presley” has been playing “the King” since he was three and, all grown up now, recently wowed Britain’s BBC-TV audiences as “The World’s No. 1 Rock ‘N’ Roll Elvis!” Gavin Rohrer is on a roll playing “Jerry Lee Lewis,” pin-balling around the country to rave reviews for his mad piano skills and comic chops. Critical acclaim as well follows Bill Sheets, our “Johnny Cash,” for coming on strong with a voice and delivery praised as “sublime.” 

Our “out of town hires” here are complemented sensationally by Chicago’s own Adam Wesley Brown as “Carl Perkins.” Adam is a singer/songwriter out of Louisville, Kentucky, has a band and released a debut album with his fellow cast members from the Broadway production of Once. The Jeff nominated actor has graced the stage at Jackalope Theatre and Chicago Shakes. Jeff Award-winning actress, the lovely Courtney Mack, is Elvis’s girlfriend “Dyanne.” A knockout in Heathers: The Musical at Kokandy, demure Courtney holds her own with these guys with her musically smoldering, powerhouse vocals. Portraying the famous producer of Sun Records who created the beginnings of the quartet’s meteoric careers is Nicholas Harazin, the Jeff Award nominated actor from Chicago Dramatists’ I’m Going to Change the World and Beautiful Autistic. Classically trained with a contemporary edge, Nick’s star has been rising steadily in Chicago, and he brings a fresh, competitive bite to the role of “Sam Phillips.”

With Scott Simon as “Fluke” on drums, Zach Lentino as “Brother Jay” on bass and Understudies: Michael Korowski (Jerry Lee Lewis), Kent M. Lewis (Johnny Cash, Sam Phillips), Doug Pawlik (Elvis Presley), Jesse Pinnick (Dyanne), Ethan Deppe (Fluke), Jake Saleh (Brother Jay), Zachary Stevenson (Carl Perkins), dear reader, we begin rehearsals three weeks from yesterday! MDQ opens September 13 and runs through October 29. With Kory Danielson as music director and Ethan Deppe as associate music director, we’ve had a blast casting this show! Can’t wait to see everyone under one roof! Keep a good thought, and see ya later alligator!

Jim