For the boys, they went on hold a few weeks ago. Several of my friend's daughter's friends are in that group. So there must be 2 or 3 different castings going on...The boys are on hold for the Broadway show.

Do you know if all of the offers went out including ensemble?

Congratulations to those involved!

I don't know if offers have been made at all - they're still looking for band members which I don't think will be easy to come by. They want really proficient and experienced kids and at 13, there might not be a lot available. Any kids who do play drums or guitar, may not be all that interested in doing a Broadway show. But who knows. I only heard about the boys. So I can't speak at all for girls, other boys or ensemble....Sorry.

FYI to All - This was posted on Jason Robert Brown's weblog today:

As has been announced elsewhere, "13" is doing a pre-Broadway run at the Norma Terris Theater at Goodspeed, in Chester CT, starting May 9. The show is substantially different, in every respect, from the version produced in Los Angeles last year. First of all, just in terms of the writing itself, we've replaced more than half of the songs, re-focussed the story, added a half-hour of running time (and with it, an intermission), and probably changed every single line of the book except for four really good jokes. Paradoxically, the show is longer because it's leaner and tighter, and there is now a much straighter line from the beginning to the end. A lesson I learned this year with both "13" and the London revision of Parade is that it's all too easy to let a secondary character hijack the show. I know we solved it in Parade by cutting down Britt Craig's role; I think we've now solved it in "13".

But apart from the rewriting, there are lots of other changes at "13". Most importantly, we have a new director, Jeremy Sams, who has been invaluable both in his ability to cut the fat away from the story and in his understanding of the way music functions in the show. The fact that Jeremy is a formidable musician in his own right doesn't hurt. In fact, Jeremy is a terrifying polymath; a quick look at his résumé shows that he has directed successful plays and musicals on Broadway and the West End, as well as having written film scores, lyrics and books of musicals, and translations and adaptations of classic and obscure plays (from several different languages, all of which he speaks fluently). Dan and I are convinced that in the event of some horrible catastrophe, Jeremy is perfectly equipped to take over any and all jobs on the show, ours included. (Mercifully, he's a lousy actor, and I'm sure his dancing is perfectly execrable, so the kids needn't feel threatened.)

Our choreographer is Christopher Gattelli, whose work is represented in New York not just by Altar Boyz but by two equally dazzling Broadway revivals this year, Sunday in the Park with George and South Pacific. Our set and costume designer also worked on Sunday, the masterful David Farley. We have an absolutely first-class lighting designer, Tony Award-winner Brian MacDevitt; a terrifically gifted sound designer, Jon Weston; and our musical director is none other than Tom Kitt, whose own show (the thrilling Next To Normal) just closed after a powerful production at Second Stage. Going into rehearsal knowing that this team is supporting us is a tremendously reassuring, even empowering, experience.

None of that would matter if we didn't have the talent onstage to bring this show to life, and I'm over the moon about the cast and band that we hired. Assembling the cast took a long time, and the final group that's going into rehearsal in two weeks comes from all over the country – New York and the tri-state area, of course, but also Los Angeles, Texas, and Florida – and while some of the kids have résumés longer than mine, others have never done a professional production before.

The band is an equally amazing group, and the band audition day was the most fun I've had in a long time; sixty-five awesomely gifted teenagers showed up and made glorious music together for seven hours. The hardest part was figuring out who to send home; all of the grownups in the room felt that we could have randomly picked five kids at any given time and ended up with a superb band. Needless to say, the five that made it to the end are exceptional. I know that kid musicians are not as used to the arbitrary and bizarre process of auditioning as kid actors are, so I wanted to take this space to thank all the musicians for coming out and playing so beautifully and rolling with the experience. Having a "kid band" is a huge experiment for a Broadway musical, but I know it's going to pay off handsomely.