Interviews

The Cast of the Broadway Musical the Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical Share their Favorite Books

[Note from Frolic: We’re more than a little smitten with the cast of The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical. We were STOKED, pun intended, when we got the opportunity to ask them some of our most burning questions.]

Frolic Asks the Lightning Thief Cast: What’s your favorite book?

James Hayden Rodriguez (Luke and others) says…

My favorite book is a book by Octavia E. Butler called Kindred. It’s half sci-fi, half historical fiction and gives an incredibly interesting perspective on interracial relationships and heritage. The protagonist Dana, an intelligent, free thinking Black woman in the mid-70’s, is transported back in time to 1815 into the body of a African-American slave. Her objective is to save her family line by protecting Rufus, the son of her white slave owner who is also the father of one of her ancestors (are you following?). Dana’s husband also gets transported back in time and tries to free Dana from slavery which provides for a very riveting story. It’s graphic and violent, but necessary. It comments on race relations and racial inequalities in a way that is so real and palpable. READ IT!

Kristen Stokes (Annabeth Chase) says…

That’s a hard one… but I would have to say Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D

It’s a perfect blend of Jungian Psychology, old story telling, and deep wisdom, and feels more like discovering a sacred treasure map to truth than just a book about the psyche.

Jalynn Steele (Sally and others) says…

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. I read it when I was 16 for school required English but I found it to be a pretty entertaining and interesting read. It was such a beautiful well-told, coming of age story that has stuck with me even to this day and I still go back and read it from time to time.

Jorell Javier (Grover and Mr. D)

It’s so cliché, and I promise I don’t get paid to say this, but I feel like the Percy Jackson series (all 5 of them as whole) still takes the cake for me. I’ve read plenty of books since I first read the novels in middle school, and I’ve loved a lot of them, but because Percy Jackson and the Olympians was the first series I fell in love with, the sentimentality combined with the quality of the books makes it my number one.

Thanks for Reading!

This marks the end of our Q&A series with this lovely cast. We wish them the best with the rest of their run! Grab tickets to see The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical here!