Watch: 'From Here,' a Musical about the Pulse Tragedy, Heads Off Broadway after Official Orlando Premiere

"From Here," a new musical that follows a group of close friends in-and-around the 2016 mass shooting at Orlando's Pulse nightclub, is heading off-Broadway this summer, the Orlando Sentinel reports. (Note: linked story behind a firewall.)

The musical was first seen at the 2019 Orlando Fringe Festival. Since then, it has had a few limited runs in Central Florida. A planned full-length run was cut short in 2020 by COVID. Prior to its New York run, it will be seen at Orlando's Renaissance Theatre from March 27 through May 5 under the direction of the theater's artistic director Donald Rupe.

"It doesn't feel surprising that this is happening, but it does feel huge," Rupe told the Sentinel. "It's all I think about."

Rupe wrote the show with arrangements and orchestrations by Jason M. Bailey.

He added that the Orlando run is important because probably less than 250 people who have seen it here."

The theater has been raising money for its off-Broadway run on their website. "Now, more than six years after the tragedy that changed Orlando,' From Here' is more important than ever," reads the website. "It's one perspective of life in the aftermath of a mass shooting. It's a reminder of the lasting impacts of senseless loss due to gun violence. And it's also a story of hope; a reminder of why these memories matter; and the unification of people in the aftermath of horror. It's about love, friendship, and family."

Last January there were a pair of fund-raising, concert performances at New York's 54 Below with some 30 producers, investors and theater-industry professionals present. ""They all keep saying, 'Let us know what your next step is,'" Rupe told the Sentinel.

The show will run June 27-Aug. 11 at the 191-seat Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at the Pershing Square Signature Center, on 42nd Street just a few blocks west of Times Square.

"Opening weekend is also New York City's annual LGBTQ Pride celebration, with its big parade set for June 30."added the Sentinel. "Rupe was apprehensive about opening during the festivities but realized the gay themes of his show complemented the celebration. He has reserved a spot for 'From Here' to participate in the famed parade, which will help spread the word about the show."

He added: "We're going to encourage Orlando people to come that weekend and march with us," he said. "We really want it to feel like a community effort. We're going to tell a story about Orlando in the big city."

Rupe also plans on casting the show with Orlando actors, with Blake Aburn and Becca Southworth reprising their roles of Daniel, the show's lead, and his mother whose contentious relationship is up-ended by the Pulse tragedy. The pair have been with the show since 2019. "Through Daniel, we show what Pulse meant to people like me and my friends, who spent our formative years at Pulse and nightclubs like Pulse," Aburn told the Sentinel. "It changed us. It changed many of us."

Rupe also believes it is important to bring the show to as wide an audience as possible.

"It's so important to remember and pay tribute to what happened here in 2016. We live in a country where more and more communities have endured horrific events like what happened at Pulse, and our government willfully puts weapons into hateful hands," he said. "A first step toward real progress is in memorializing these moments, and then, hopefully, we can move people to honor the real victims of gun violence with real action
and change."

Watch this clip of the song "Order" from a performance of "We're Here" at Central Florida Community Arts.