Who's Cooking Up Fast Food?

EDD KALEHOFF is a renowned keyboard player and composer/arranger of more than 1000 pieces of music, predominantly for network television. His credits include themes for ABC Sports' Monday Night Football, ABC Evening News and Nightline, Good Morning America, the original Price Is Right and The New Price Is Right, to name a few. Edd's score for Fast Food covers a broad array of musical genres reflecting Fast Food's diverse cast of characters and our multi-ethnic culture: Hip-hop; Latin; Gospel; R&B; Jazz; Pop; Country; Traditional Broadway; even German oom-pah-pah! Edd has been working on Fast Food for the better part of three years and we'll be posting hors d' oeuvres from the score -- simple demo tracks with minimal arrangements -- to give you a taste of what lies ahead. VICTOR SONDER is responsible for the Fast Food book and song lyrics. An award-winning writer, advertising Creative Director and Commercial Director, Victor was inspired to write Fast Food after a late-night phone call from Edd Kalehoff, his long-time friend and commercial music collaborator. It seems Edd's wife, Andrea McArdle of "Annie" fame, was searching for a Broadway musical and increasingly frustrated with the lack of substantive material. Edd mentioned a concept Victor had discussed years earlier, while handling creative work for Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers. Though Andrea heard little more than the title-- "Fast Food" -- she was immediately enthusiastic. And though Victor had little more than a title, he enthusiastically agreed to write the book. Four years later the project is nearing fruition, along with the end of Andrea McArdle's search for an original, new Broadway vehicle. She will be starring as Rose McDonald, the mother of teen-age lead Rosa McDonald, when the musical is launched.

The Meat of Fast Food.

Fast Food is the story of Rosa McDonald, a part-time Fast Food worker, and her daunting struggle to escape the crushing poverty, crime and intolerance surrounding her. Lavar Brown, Fast Food manager, is a demanding boss with a jaded world-view transformed by Rosa's optimism, intelligence and ambition. The two fall in love and navigate the pitfalls of clashing cultures, both societal and corporate, while dealing with their own growing attraction for one another. Three seemingly disparate storylines--of a single Fast Food restaurant, the Fast Food corporate hierarchy and the Latin Lords street gang--are connected through character and circumstance to create a dramatic narrative of society's ongoing conflict between the "haves" and the "have-nots."

Fast Food Is Heating Up!

The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA, will be conducting a reading of the Fast Food book on Saturday, February 2, 2008. After two exhaustive casting sessions and an evening of call-backs at the end of November, students were selected for each of the 24 roles. The reading on 2/2/08 will be preceded by three days of rehearsals with the students. The session will then be recorded and all 23 demo songs and much of the underscore will be inserted during post-production at Edd Kalehoff's studio in New Rochelle, NY. The resulting CD will be used to preview the show for potential investors during a series of showcase events scheduled for early March.