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Wall Street Journal: George Takei Chronicles His Trek to Broadway

(center, from left) Lea Salonga as Kei Kimura, Telly Leung as Sammy Kimura, George Takei as Ojii-san and Paul Nakauchi as Tatsuo Kimura with the cast of the World Premiere of Allegiance - A New American Musical, with music and lyrics by Jay Kuo and book by Marc Acito, Kuo and Lorenzo Thione, directed by Stafford Arima, Sept. 7 - Oct. 21, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco.
(center, from left) Lea Salonga as Kei Kimura, Telly Leung as Sammy Kimura, George Takei as Ojii-san and Paul Nakauchi as Tatsuo Kimura with the cast of the World Premiere of Allegiance – A New American Musical, with music and lyrics by Jay Kuo and book by Marc Acito, Kuo and Lorenzo Thione, directed by Stafford Arima, Sept. 7 – Oct. 21, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco.

Social media superstar George Takei has entered an agreement with Facebook to document his journey from Star Trek to Broadway, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The 10-part documentary series will focus on the making of Allegiance, the Broadway production opening this fall about a Japanese American family’s internal struggle with the incarceration camp experience.

Each 10 minute episode from filmmaker Greg Vander Veer will take viewers behind the scenes to rehearsals and even show disagreement among the creative team.

Allegiance producer Lorenzo Thione says Takei’s social media branding which has amassed 8.8 million Facebook followers was intended from the beginning to get to this point.

“We did that for the purpose of Allegiance,” said Thione.

From the moment Takei conceived the idea for the play, he knew questions about whether such a project could make money would hound him.

“People I talked to early on came to it with ‘I don’t know if it is commercial,’ ” Thione said. “The challenge from day one was, how do we create an audience? I said, ‘We have to make George into a mainstream character.’ ”

You can read about how Takei’s team grew the actor’s social media presence and how that lead to getting the show produced on Broadway in the Wall Street Journal.

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