Scott Porter Tapped to Join Cast of Upcoming Altar Boyz at Dodger Stages

Broadway.com has learned that Scott Porter has been tapped to play boy-band leader Matthew in the upcoming off-Broadway mounting of Altar Boyz. The musical is scheduled to begin performances at Dodger Stages on February 15 in preparation for a March 1 opening.

Porter recently made his New York stage debut as an understudy with Toxic Audio. He is a former member of the group 4:2:Five, which during Porter's tenure performed as an opening act for 98 Degrees. Porter has also been a featured performer in Japan's Tokyo Disneyland and at Disney World in Florida as well as Universal Studios Florida.

Altar Boyz is a musical comedy about a struggling Christian boy-band riding the wave of America's latest fascination with religion. Armed with catchy melodies, freaky moves and product in their hair, the self-anointed apostles of pop Matthew, Mark, Luke, Juan... and Abraham, who is Jewish bring their soul-saving tour to New York City, where they will sing their hits, with lyrics including "Girl, You Make Me Wanna Wait" and "Jesus Called Me On My Cell Phone." Conceived by Marc Kessler and Ken Davenport, Altar Boyz has a score by Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker and a book by Kevin Del Aguila.

The new musical, directed by Stafford Arima and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, was a popular hit when it ran for a limited number of performances at the 47th Street Theatre as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival. William Stevenson in his Broadway.com Review wrote: "The songs, by Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker, are bouncy pop tunes with comically devout lyrics. 'God put the rhythm in me so I could bust a move,' Luke sings. But Kevin Del Aguila's book, which consists primarily of between-song patter, is very slight. The religious jokes wear thin after a while and there's almost no plot. The only leitmotifs are Juan's search for his family and a soul-saving machine called the DX12 that keeps track of how many audience members' souls have been cleansed during the performance. There's a good jab at the trend of boy-band members going solo, though. Fortunately, most of the 90-minute show consists of the dozen musical numbers, which manage to be both amusing spoofs and lively songs."

Ryan Duncan, Cheyenne Jackson, David Josefsberg, Andy Karl and Tyler Maynard appeared in the show at the festival. Everyone except Jackson who is now the lead in All Shook Up will reprise their roles off-Broadway.

A production spokesperson could not confirm the casting of Porter.