LET 'EM EAT CAKE to Open at New York City Center's ENCORES! Series

Opera Philadelphia and New York City Center has announced a landmark collaboration to bring Opera Philadelphia’s new take on George and Ira Gershwin’s Let ’Em Eat Cake to New York in March 2027, following its Philadelphia premiere at the Academy of Music January 29–31. Directed by trailblazing theater and opera director Zack Winokur and conducted by Opera Philadelphia’s Judy & Peter Leone Music Director Corrado Rovaris, the production reclaims one of the Gershwins’ most daring and overlooked works for a contemporary audience.

The New York engagement represents an extraordinary meeting of two organizations with complementary histories. For more than three decades, City Center’s Tony-honored Encores! series has brought rarely performed musicals back to the stage, beginning in 1994 and becoming renowned for rediscovering forgotten works and presenting them with exceptional artists and musicians. The series is now in its 34th year and remains centered around celebrating great scores from the American musical-theater canon. The Encores! production will maintain the series’s signature concert staging with The Encores! Orchestra featured on stage, led by Guest Music Director Rob Berman.

For Opera Philadelphia, the collaboration is also a particularly meaningful one: Let ’Em Eat Cake brings an opera company into conversation with one of the country's most influential musical-theater institutions, extending the work beyond the traditional boundaries of either form.

“I cannot tell you how excited I am to be teaming up with City Center’s Encores! series and their joyful, visionary Artistic Director Jenny Gersten, who has been an invaluable advisor since we first conceived of this project and whom I am proud to now call a partner,” said Anthony Roth Costanzo, General Director and President of Opera Philadelphia. “There is a palpable excitement and buzz around this work and Zack Winokur’s brilliant vision for it, and how powerfully it will connect with audiences. Now that Encores! is joining us to give Let ’Em Eat Cake an extended life, I know this collaboration will make a strong case for this Gershwin gem to become a staple rather than a rarity.”

The partnership exemplifies Opera Philadelphia’s increasingly collaborative approach to producing and presenting opera. The company’s work regularly extends beyond the traditional opera house through partnerships with institutions across Philadelphia and beyond, creating new opportunities for artists and audiences and placing opera in unexpected cultural contexts.

Recent and ongoing collaborations have included projects and relationships with New York’s Apollo Theater, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the historic Wanamaker Building, the Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia, and other cultural, civic, and community partners. These collaborations are central to Opera Philadelphia’s artistic and organizational model, allowing the company to share resources, reach new audiences, and create work that can exist in multiple cultural spaces.

“This is an extraordinary opportunity for New York City Center to collaborate with two artists, Zack and Anthony, who share so much synergy with our musical theater loving community. I deeply admire their taste and leadership, and look forward to seeing how this partnership will blossom,” said Jenny Gersten, VP & Artistic Director, Musical Theater for New York City Center.

“Let ’Em Eat Cake is a work that has been waiting for this moment,” said director Zack Winokur. “The Gershwins created something astonishingly bold in 1933—something that is at once a musical, a political satire, a theatrical spectacle, and a deeply American work of art. Having the opportunity to build this production with Opera Philadelphia and then bring it to New York with City Center’s Encores! series is a dream.”

The 1933 musical, a sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Of Thee I Sing, imagines a defeated American president attempting to overthrow the incoming government and redesign the White House—a farcical concept in 1933 that finds urgent relevance in the 21st century. Opera Philadelphia’s production is among the first major staged U.S. productions of the work since its Broadway debut nearly a century ago. The Philadelphia engagement of Let ’Em Eat Cake takes place January 29, 30, and 31, 2027, at the Academy of Music. Opera Philadelphia’s Judy & Peter Leone Music Director Corrado Rovaris leads the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra and Elizabeth Braden leads the Opera Philadelphia Chorus. The production is performed in English with English supertitles and runs approximately two hours and 20 minutes, including one intermission. The New York presentation will take place at New York City Center in March 2027, with Guest Music Director Rob Berman leading The Encores! Orchestra in performances from March 17-28, 2027.