Whanganui bound rock opera state highway has announced Shane Cortese and Delia Hannah will play the lead roles in the critically acclaimed homegrown production.
State Highway 48 is a New Zealand original work, tracking the life and times of an everyday family and their friends as they navigate middle age.
Changes in the family, workplace, and friendship are set against the backdrop of the recession and accompanied by 26 original songs.
Cortese - known for his roles in Nothing Trivial, Outrageous Fortune and The Almighty Johnsons - plays Dave the dad, a character who takes everyone on a journey through his good and bad days, having been bitten by the black dog of depression.
New Zealand's first lady of musical theatre, Hannah, will play Dave's wife Sharon, a suburban housewife: fragile, lost, loving, disenfranchised.