Following the sold out hit production of Tucson High Magnet School’s Disaster! last fall, it’s back as a special benefit star event for one night only!

Broadway stars and playwrights and three-time Emmy® Award nominee, Grammy® Award nominee and SiriusXM host Seth Rudetsky and Jack Plotnick will join the Tucson High company onstage for DISASTER! IN CONCERT - A SPECIAL ONE NIGHT ONLY STAR EVENT FEATURING  SETH RUDETSKY AND JACK PLOTNICK!  

The musical comedy parodies and pays comedic tribute to the genre of 1970’s disaster films. "This spoof of catastrophe-themed movies mixed with ’70’s pop hits gushes with Velveeta as well as laughs, great new talents and savvy jukebox craftsmanship,” said the New York Daily News. This special one night only abbreviated “DISASTER! in CONCERT” cabaret style show production will feature both Rudetsky and Plotnick on stage performing with the students. The production will be directed by Art Almquist, a 22-Year Tucson High veteran, multi-award-winner and People Magazine’s Teacher of the Year.

The concert/cabaret style production will feature scenes from the full length musical in which a group of New Yorkers attends the opening of a floating casino and discotheque that quickly succumbs to multiple disasters. These calamities correlate with plots of various disaster films of the 1970’s, such as earthquakes or shark attacks, echoing situations from the films Earthquake, Towering Inferno and Jaws.   Additionally, the show keeps with a 1970’s theme by being a jukebox musical, using the most recognizable and popular songs of the decade as musical numbers including "Knock On Wood," "Hooked On A Feeling," "Sky High," "I Am Woman," "Hot Stuff" and of course “I Will Survive.”

“I am very excited to be working with the Tucson High Magnet School,” said Rudetsky. “I will be presenting this school and director the very first “Master of Disaster” award for their excellent production of the show last fall.”

This one night only production will benefit Tucson High Magnet School’s theater arts program. These funds will be a major help to the school which needs arts funding.

 “A couple of weeks after we closed, I couldn’t get the show out of my head,” stated Almquist. “I wrote Seth and floated the idea of a summer remount, and he suggested instead that we do the show on January 26, but with him playing for us!”

“I am absolutely stunned by the generosity shown by Seth Rudetsky, Jack Plotnick, and Music Theatre International who is waiving all fees to make this benefit happen,” continued Almquist.”  It will help us continue to bring the magic of theatre to hundreds of students every year.”

Directions: 

Tucson High Magnet School is located at 400 N. 2nd Avenue, Tucson AZ  85705.  Use this for your GPS, but the school's two entrances are NOT off of 2nd Ave and you will get lost behind the football field!   The school is located on the southwest corner of Euclid and 6th street, with the best parking available south of the school, on the corner of Euclid and 8th street.   

Tucson High can be hard to navigate and takes some time to walk around.   Again, the two-story parking lot south of the school, off of 8th street at Euclid, is your best bet for parking.   Exit the parking lot onto the sidewalk with the tennis courts to your left.  Take the sidewalk towards the school.  You'll walk between a new-looking gym on your left, and our older vocational building on your right.  When you reach the mall area, ease left, walking towards the ramada, lunch tables, and snack machines.  You will see the Main building ahead, with a lit THEATRE sign above the doors.  Enter here and proceed DOWNSTAIRS to the Little Theatre.  (There will be another performance happening upstairs in the auditorium.)  If you need an elevator, please send someone downstairs to our box office and have the house manager assist you.

Tucson High's Theatre program is nationally recognized for its excellence in productions, training, and community outreach.  Director Art Almquist was named one of PEOPLE Magazine's 2013 Teachers of the Year, and in 2016 was named the winner of the Children's Theatre Foundation of America's national Reba Robertson Award for Excellence in Theatre Education.  In 2006, he was awarded the LUMIE Award for Arts Education by the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona, and in 2015 won the Ben Vereen Award for Best Director. Since he started at Tucson High in 1996, the program has grown and expanded to the point that  three drama teachers on staff: Julian Martinez, who was one of Almquist's students when he started and went on to become a professional actor and educator, and Marissa Garcia, also a Tucson professional actor and singer.  Tucson High's curriculum includes three separate levels of drama, as well as separate courses in film acting and musical theatre.  Productions are all rehearsed and performed after school and separately from classes, allowing class students to focus solely on acting and not play production. 

Our productions are known state-wide for being always professional and often outside the box.  We've produced classics such as THE CRUCIBLE and OUR TOWN, socially relevant pieces like THE LARAMIE PROJECT and VIETNAM 101: THE WAR ON CAMPUS, newer works like THE DROWSY CHAPERONE and ZOMBIE PROM, and last year, TOO FAST, a new play from Scotland about teenagers dealing with the death of a peer, which we performed in full Scottish dialect.

The theatre program regularly connects with community groups and social organizations, bringing its students in contact with people and subjects relevant to their work.  Organizations with whom we've connected and for whom we have raised funds and awareness include Amnesty International, Comin' Home (helping Tucson homeless Veterans), UA Medical Center, and EMERGE Center Against Domestic Violence. 

Tucson High's Theatre program has been nationally recognized by the JIMMY Awards and the Ben Vereen Awards, and is regularly named one of the best high school theatre programs in the country by the American High School Theatre Awards.

DISASTER! in CONCERT!  is the third time Tucson High's Theatre has remounted a musical from Music Theatre International.  In 1997, the program remounted QUILT: A MUSICAL CELEBRATION as a summer return, raising funds and awareness for the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation.  In 2001, at a time when the Arizona state legislature was threatening to cut Magnet funding, the program brought back LUCKY STIFF in the summer and invited every single Arizona legislator to attend.