Chris Sumpter Videos

New Your City Center's Encores! Off-Center series is back and better than ever! The series will kick off the 2016 season with Runaways from July 6-9th. RUNAWAYS is set in 1977 when Liz Swados spent several months observing and interviewing child Runaways before shaping their stories, fears, and fantasies into a musical. A deeply unconventional work in its day, Runaways feels like the funkiest, most heartbreaking mixtape ever to come out of a 1970s boom box, packed with reggae anthems, hip-hop, soul-food lullabies, and spoken-word poetry. The Encores! Off-Center production will honor a theater visionary who was ferocious, inspiring, and left us far too soon.

New York City Center today announced the cast of the Encores! Off-Center production of Runaways, Elizabeth Swados' landmark musical about the stories, fears, and fantasies of runaway children. Cast largely from an open call attended by over 300 teenagers of 'all ethnicities, body types, gender identification, and ability levels,' the 'wolfpack' of 25, as director Sam Pinkleton affectionately calls them, embody the ferocious kinetic energy of today's New York-just as the original cast reflected the New York of 1978.

This week's event featured performances from the cast of MATILDA, featuring: Paige Brady, Gabby Pizzolo, Ripley Sobo, Ava Ulloa and Marisa Kennedy, Jennifer Bowles, Heather Tepe, Sean Montgomery, Alex Brightman, Geoff Packard, JohnArthur Greene, Timothy Cao, Grace Capeless, Ava DeMary, Jonah Halperin, Alexa Shae Niziak, Sofia Roma Rubino,Analise Scarpaci, Mitchell Sink, Chris Sumpter, Beatrice Tulchin and TEd Wilson. Check out clips from 'When I Grow Up,' 'Naughty,' and 'Revolting Children' below!