Hollmann and Kotis have cre-
ated the music for The Sting, the
latest World Premiere at
Paper Mill Playhouse in Mill-
burn from March 29 - April 29.
Based on the 1973 Academy-
Award-winning film, the play is
set in 1936 Chicago, a smoke-
filled world of cons and capers.
The Sting tells the tale of a pair
of con men, small-town grifter
Johnny Hooker and big-time
hustler Henry Gondorff, who plot
to bring down the city’s most
corrupt racketeer.
Paper Mill’s production stars
Harry Connick, Jr. as Henry
Gondorff, with Peter Ben-
son as The Erie Kid, Janet Da-
cal as Loretta, Christopher
Gurr as J.J. Singleton, J. Harrison
Ghee as Johnny Hooker, Tom
Hewitt as Doyle Lonnegan, Rich-
ard Kline as Kid Twist, Kev-
yn Morrow as Luther, Kate
Shindle as Billie, and Robert
Wuhl as Snyder.
NJ STAGE - ISSUE 45
The Tony Award-winning cre-
ative team includes director
John Rando (On the Town), cho-
reographer Warren Carlyle (Hel-
lo, Dolly!), bookwriter Bob Mar-
tin (The Drowsy Chaperone), and
the work of Hollmann and Kotis
who have been involved in the
creation of this musical for the
last five years.
“We have worked on it together
since around 2013 when we were
first invited to audition for it by
writing a song on spec,” explained
Kotis. “Mark and I were brought
on as a songwriting team.”
The pair started out by look-
ing at an outline of the adapted
work by Bob Martin. “We tried
to figure out where in that out-
line songs would naturally flow,”
added Hollmann. “When we
first met with Bob, we had that in
hand.”
According to Kotis, the
lyrics generally come first for
the songwriting team.
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