George Hearn & Elena Shaddow to Star in FANNY at Encores! Cast Announced...

Fred Applegate, George Hearn, David Patrick Kelly, Michael McCormick, Rondi Reed, Elena Shaddow, James Snyder and Ted Sutherland have been cast in Fanny, the 50th Encores! musical produced by New York City Center since 1994 and the second Encores! production of the season. Fanny, running February 4 - 7, has music and lyrics by Harold Rome and book by S.N. Behrman and Joshua Logan, and is based on Marcel Pagnol's trilogy Marius, Fanny and Cesar. Fanny will be directed by Marc Bruni and choreographed by Lorin Latarro with music direction by Rob Berman.

Fanny is set in Marseille and features one of Broadway's greatest love stories - a tale of a young girl's (Elena Shaddow) passion for a young man so in love with the sea that he leaves her, little realizing that she is pregnant with his child. Her marriage of convenience to a wealthy older man (Fred Applegate) desperate to have an heir is complicated by the sailor's return years later. Joshua Logan and S.N. Behrman provided an earthy book, and Harold Rome's score contains some of the most ardent and sweeping melodies ever written for the theater, including the title song, "Restless Heart" and "Never Too Late For Love." Fanny opened on November 4, 1954 at the Majestic Theater and played for a total of 888 performances.

Fred Applegate (Panisse) appeared on Broadway as Max Bialystock in The Producers and as Max Detweiler in The Sound of Music (also London), and in Happiness and Young Frankenstein. He played Franz Liebkind in the first national tour of The Producers.

George Hearn (Cesar) won Tony Awards for Sunset Boulevard and La Cage aux Folles and received nominations for Putting It Together, A Doll's Life and Watch on The Rhine. He also appeared on Broadway in Wicked, The Diary of Anne Frank, Meet Me in St. Louis, I Remember Mama, A Time for Singing, An Almost Perfect Person, The Changing Room and Ah, Wilderness!

David Patrick Kelly (The Admiral) has appeared on Broadway in Twelfth Night (Lincoln Center) and at leading theaters throughout the United States. At the Hartford Stage he starred in the title roles in Woyzeck and Tartuffe and played Iago in Othello and Hoss in Tooth of Crime. He appeared in four Richard Foreman plays: Pearls for Pigs, The Mind King, Film Is Evil/Radio Is Good and The Cure. In 1998 he received an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence.

Michael McCormick's (Escartifique) many Broadway credits include Curtains, Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, The Pajama Game, Gypsy, Marie Christine, Kiss Me Kate, 1776 and Kiss of the Spider Woman.

Rondi Reed's (Honorine) Broadway credits include August: Osage County, for which she won the Tony Award, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice and The Grapes of Wrath. Ms. Reed has been a member of the Steppenwolf Ensemble for 30 years, appearing in more than 50 productions at Steppenwolf Theatre, her artistic home, and in festival productions for Steppenwolf in Australia, Ireland and the U.K. In 2005, she originated the role of Madame Morrible in the Chicago company of the musical Wicked.
Elena Shaddow (Fanny) appeared on Broadway in The Woman in White, Fiddler on the Roof, Nine, Sweet Smell of Success and as Cosette in Les Misérables. She played Magnolia in Show Boat in London and was nominated for a Helen Hayes Award for her performance as Clara in the national tour of The Light in the Piazza.

James Snyder (Marius) made his Broadway debut as the title role in John Waters' Crybaby after starring in the world premiere engagement at La Jolla Playhouse, a performance nominated for a Drama League Award. Other stage credits include Broadway: Three Generations at The Kennedy Center, the Los Angeles productions of Rock of Ages (also Las Vegas) and Happy Days.

Marc Bruni (Director) recently directed Ordinary Days for Roundabout Underground. Other directing credits include Such Good Friends (NYMF Directing Award), The Music Man, My One and Only, High Spirits and Glimpses of the Moon. He was Associate Director of the Broadway, London and touring productions of Legally Blonde and appeared on MTV's "Search for Elle Woods." He has been associated with Walter Bobbie, Kathleen Marshall, Jerry Mitchell and Jerry Zaks on 13 Broadway shows including Irving Berlin's White Christmas, The Pajama Game, Grease, Wonderful Town, High Fidelity, Sweet Charity, La Cage Aux Folles and Little Shop Of Horrors (Broadway/Tour) as well as on City Center Encores! productions of Finian's Rainbow; No, No, Nanette; Applause; Bye, Bye Birdie and 70, Girls, 70.

Rob Berman (Music Director) has been music director of the Encores! series for three seasons and has conducted Stairway to Paradise, Damn Yankees, Music in the Air, Applause and Finian's Rainbow. He is currently conducting the Broadway transfer of Finian's Rainbow at the St. James Theater. Other Broadway credits include Irving Berlin's White Christmas, for which he serves as music supervisor, the Tony Award-winning revival of The Pajama Game, and Wonderful Town. Mr. Berman was music director of the Kennedy Center's production of Sunday in the Park with George for which he won a Helen Hayes Award for Best Musical Direction. He is also music director of the Kennedy Center Honors orchestra, for which he received an Emmy nomination.

Lorin Latarro (Choreographer) recently choreographed Cy Coleman's The Best Is Yet to Come at The Rubicon Theater, which garnered two Ovation nominations with director David Zippel. Other choreographic credits include Hansel and Gretel on PBS's "Live From Lincoln Center," Lysistrata at Avery Fischer Hall, Broadway By The Year '79 and '65 at Town Hall, The Jerusalem Syndrome (NYMF), How To Succeed... at White Plains Performing Arts Center, Love of Three Oranges and The Magic Flute for The Juilliard Opera Company, Kickin' It at Alvin Ailey, and Erotic Broadway at The Triad. She is currently the associate choreographer of Greenday's American Idiot with director Michael Mayer.

The 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 which 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, 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 long been known and beloved by New York audiences not only as one of the City's preeminent performing art institutions but also as an accessible and welcoming venue for dance and theater. New York City Center produces the Tony-honored Encores! musical theater series and is home to some of the country's leading dance companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Paul Taylor Dance Company and Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company, as well as Manhattan Theatre Club, one of New York's leading theater companies. In 2004, New York City Center launched the acclaimed Fall for Dance Festival, continuing to fulfill its mission to make the arts accessible to the broadest possible audience. In 2006, New York City Center formed partnerships with both London's Sadler's Wells Theatre to facilitate the exchange of innovative dance works, and with Carnegie Hall to work together on exciting new programming initiatives between the two neighboring institutions. In 2007, New York City Center introduced the Encores! Summer Stars series with the critically-acclaimed production of Gypsy¸ starring Patti LuPone, which subsequently enjoyed a successful run on Broadway, and which was followed by Damn Yankees starring Sean Hayes and Jane Krakowski and this past summer's The Wiz starring Ashanti.

Tickets for the 2009-2010 Encores! season are available 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 $95; tickets for the Rear Mezzanine and Front Gallery are $50; tickets for the Rear Gallery are $25.