New York City Center's 2010-2011 Encores! season will open with the 1956 Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green musical Bells Are Ringing, November 18 - 21, 2010. The season will continue with Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson's Lost in the Stars, February 3 - 6, 2011, followed by Frank Loesser's and George Abbott's Where's Charley?, March 17 - 20.
In Bells Are Ringing, with music by Jule Styne and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, a lonely girl who runs an answering service falls for a client she has met only by voice, and typical 1950s mayhem ensues. The score, by turns brassy, sweet and romantic, includes "Just in Time," "The Party's Over," "I Met a Girl," "Long Before I Knew You" and a fistful of other great tunes from one of Broadway's greatest tunesmiths. The original production opened at the Shubert Theater on November 29, 1956, and played a total of 924 performances. Directed by Jerome Robbins and choreographed by Robbins and Bob Fosse, it won Tony awards for its stars Judy Holliday and Sydney Chaplin. Bells Are Ringing will run November 18-21, 2010.
Lost in the Stars has music by Kurt Weill and book and lyrics by Maxwell Anderson. Weill and Anderson set to work fashioning Alan Paton's novel Cry, the Beloved Country into a musical tragedy within weeks of its momentous publication. This story of life in South Africa under apartheid stirred generations to action, and was the basis for a beautiful, brooding, dramatic musical that produced not only the immortal title song, but an entire score that pulses with the life of a people. It opened at the Music Box Theater on October 30, 1949, and played 273 performances. Lost in the Stars will run February 3-6, 2011.
Where's Charley?, Frank Loesser's first Broadway score, immediately demonstrated the master's easy command of wit and romance, sophistication and high jinks. George Abbott's adaptation of Brandon Thomas' classic college farce Charley's Aunt delivered "Once in Love With Amy," "My Darling, My Darling" and "The New Ashmolean Marching Song" to the hit parade, and launched Loesser into the songwriting stratosphere. The musical opened at the St. James Theater on October 11, 1948, and played 792 performances. It was directed by George Abbott, choreographed by George Balanchine and starred Ray Bolger, who won a Tony Award for his performance. Where's Charley? will run March 17-20, 2011.
The 2010-11 Encores! season is made possible, in part, by the Stephanie and Fred Shuman Fund for Encores!.
The Newman's Own Foundation is a proud sponsor of Encores! The Newman's Own Foundation is an independent, private foundation that derives its grant-making income from royalty payments received in conjunction with the sale of Newman's Own food products. Since the inception of Newman's Own in the early 1980s, more than $280 million has been donated to thousands of charities around the world.
New York City Center Encores! (Jack Viertel, Artistic Director; Rob Berman, Music Director) has, since 1994, celebrated the rarely heard works of America's most important composers and lyricists. Conceived as concert versions, each Encores! season gives three scores the chance to be heard as originally intended by their creators. Over the years, Encores! has presented the works of the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart,
Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, Bock and Harnick, Stephen Sondheim, Burt Bacharach, Kander and Ebb, Comden and Green, and many others. The program is the recipient of a special 2000 Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre, as well as an Outer Critics Circle Award, Lucille Lortel Award and Jujamcyn Theaters Award.
New York City Center (Arlene Shuler, President and CEO) has played a defining role in the cultural life of the city for more than 60 years. It was Manhattan's first performing arts center, dedicated by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1943 with a mission to make the best in music, theater and dance accessible to all audiences. Today, City Center is home to many distinguished companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Paul Taylor Dance Company and Manhattan Theatre Club; a roster of renowned national and international visiting artists; and its own critically acclaimed and popular programs. The Tony-honored Encores! musical theater series has been hailed as "one of the very best reasons to be alive in New York." In 2007, Encores! Summer Stars was introduced with Gypsy, starring Patti LuPone, which transferred to Broadway and garnered three Tony awards for its lead actors. Dance has been integral to the theater's mission from the start, and dance programs, including the annual Fall for Dance Festival and a partnership with London's Sadler's Wells Theatre, remain central to City Center's identity.
Tickets for Encores! 2010-11 go on sale September 7, 2010 at the New York City Center Box Office (West 55th Street between 6th and 7th avenues), through CityTix® at 212-581-1212, or online at www.NYCityCenter.org. Tickets for the Orchestra, Grand Tier and Mid-Mezzanine are $100; tickets for the Rear Mezzanine and Front Gallery are $50; tickets for the Rear Gallery are $25.
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