Directing Alumni Bring West End Hit Musical 'Bat Out of Hell' to the U.S.

Alumnus Jay Scheib '02 directs and alumna Benita de Wit '16 associate directs the tour of Bat Out of Hell a musical about Join Strat, the forever young leader of rebellious gang, The Lost, as he falls in love with Raven, the beautiful daughter of the tyrannical ruler of post-apocalyptic Obsidian. The production is currently finishing its critically acclaimed UK tour. The musical features many of Meat Loaf’s iconic hits including I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That), It’s All Coming Back To Me Now, and Paradise By The Dashboard Light. It will begin its North American tour in January. The show will go up at the New York City Center in the summer of 2019.

Jay Scheib is internationally known for genre-defying works of daring physicality and the integration of new (and used) technologies in live performance. In addition to Bat Out of Hell, Scheib’s current productions include a new opera based on Ingmar Bergman’s film Persona which was produced by Beth Morrison Projects and premiered at National Sawdust in New York followed by performances at the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston and in 2017 with LA Opera at RedCat. Scheib's recent mashup of Heiner Goebbels' Surrogate Cities with Richard Wagner's Götterdämmerung played to rave reviews at the Wuppertal Opera House in Germany.

Benita de Wit is an Australian director based in New York and the Associate Director for the North American Tour of Bat Out of Hell. She specializes in new plays and devised and multidisciplinary projects. She has worked at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Playwrights Realm, Classic Stage Company, Miller Theatre, Exquisite Corpse Company, Access Theater, Theater for the New City, Playwrights Horizons Theater School, Dartmouth College and Princeton University. Her immersive and multidisciplinary work has been performed at the New York Public Library, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Roulette Intermedium. She received her MFA in Directing from Columbia University and is an associate member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

For more information and to sign up for priority tickets visit Bat Out of Hell website.