Donna Murphy to Star with Sutton Foster in ANYONE CAN WHISTLE at Encores!

Tony Award winner Donna Murphy will join Sutton Foster in Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents' Anyone Can Whistle in the final New York City Center Encores! production of the 2009-2010 season. Ms. Murphy will play Mayor Cora Hoover Hooper, the role originated by Angela Lansbury. Anyone Can Whistle, running for five performances April 8 - 11, will be directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw with musical direction by Rob Berman.

Donna Murphy won Tony Awards for her performances as Fosca in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Passion and Anna in The King and I. She was nominated for Tony Awards for Lovemusik and Wonderful Town, a performance she originated in the City Center Encores! production. Her Broadway credits include The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Human Comedy and They're Playing Our Song, and she was seen off-Broadway in Twelve Dreams, Hello Again, Song of Singapore and Privates on Parade. Ms. Murphy's film credits include Rapunzel, The Nanny Diaries, The Fountain, World Trade Center, Spider-Man 2, The Door in the Floor, Center Stage, Star Trek: Insurrection, The Astronaut's Wife and Jade. She was last seen at City Center as Phyllis in the Encores! production of Follies.

Anyone Can Whistle opened on April 4, 1964, at the Majestic Theatre and closed after only nine performances. Directed by Arthur Laurents and starring Angela Lansbury, Lee Remick and Harry Guardino, the experimental satire took aim at every target on the American cultural scene of the moment-conformity, psychology, race relations, greed, religion and politics. It divided the critics, thrilled the emerging counter-culture, baffled the masses, and became an instant legend-one that has grown over the years along with Sondheim's reputation. The title song and "With So Little to Be Sure Of" have survived as cabaret classics, but the rarely-heard complete score is a riot of jazzy, show-biz razzmatazz, waltzes, gospel numbers and Broadway pastiche, as full of variety and surprise as the show that gave birth to it.

Sutton Foster won the Tony Award for Thoroughly Modern Millie and has been nominated for Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Shrek (Winner: Outer Critics Award), The Drowsy Chaperone and Little Women. Her other Broadway credits include Young Frankenstein, Les Misérables, Annie, The Scarlet Pimpernel and Grease. She has performed concert versions of Chess, Funny Girl (Actors Fund) and the American Songbook Series at Lincoln Center. On television, Ms. Foster has appeared in "Johnny and the Sprites" and "Flight of the Conchords." Her debut CD, Wish, is now available

Casey Nicholaw was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Choreography for Monty Python's Spamalot and also for his direction and choreography for the Broadway production of The Drowsy Chaperone. Other New York credits include Candide, starring Patti LuPone and Kristin Chenoweth for the New York Philharmonic (shown on PBS' Great Performances), and South Pacific at Carnegie Hall, with Reba McEntire and Brian Stokes Mitchell (also on PBS' Great Performances). His previous Encores! credits include director/choreographer of Follies, the musical staging of Can-Can and choreography for Bye Bye Birdie. Upcoming projects include the new musicals Minsky's, Elf and Robin and the 7 Hoods.

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.

Anyone Can Whistle is generously supported by Perry and Martin Granoff and Mary Jo and Ted Shen. The 2009-2010 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 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 and Paul Taylor Dance 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 a partnership with London's Sadler's Wells Theatre to facilitate the exchange of innovative dance works. In 2007, the Encores! Summer Stars series kicked off with the critically acclaimed production of Gypsy¸ starring Patti LuPone, which subsequently enjoyed a successful run on Broadway. This was followed in 2008 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 tickets are $95; tickets for the Rear Mezzanine and Front Gallery are $50; tickets for the Rear Gallery are $25.

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