Of Thee I Sing Performance Follows City Center Gala, 5/15

New York City Center will hold its annual Spring Benefit celebration honoring Raymond A. Lamontagne on Monday, May 15, at New York City Center, 55th Street between 6th & 7th Avenues. The gala will be co-chaired by Bobbie Frankfort, Sherry R. Jacobs, Patricia W. Lovejoy, and Frederic M. Seegal. 

Lamontagne will be presented by Paul Newman with the Fiorello H. LaGuardia Award, given for distinguished service to New York City and to City Center.  A performance of the upcoming Encores! show Of Thee I Sing will follow.

Lamontagne has had a diverse career in business, public policy, and philanthropy. He has been a partner of Seavest Inc., a venture capital company based in White Plains, NY, and he is now the President of the Encore Company. He is Chairman of the board of City Center. He is also Chairman of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, and Chairman of Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Camps for children with cancer and other serious blood diseases. He serves as a trustee of the Dyson Foundation.

The May 15 benefit will begin at 6:00pm with cocktails, followed by a performance of the New York City Center Encores! production of George and Ira Gershwin's Of Thee I Sing, the final performance of the 2006 Encores! season, at 7:00pm. Dinner will be held in the City Center Atrium at 9:00pm.

Of Thee I Sing, the uproarious 1931 satire of love and politics, will star Victor Garber as John P. Wintergreen, the National Party's candidate for President of the United States. The score includes "Love is Sweeping the Country," "Who Cares," and "Of Thee I Sing (Baby)." Directed by John Rando, with music direction by Paul Gemignani, Of Thee I Sing will play for six performances, from May 11 - 15.

The cast also includes Jefferson Mays as the highly forgettable Vice President Throttlebottom, Jennifer Laura Thompson as the muffin-baking Mary Turner, Jonathan Freeman (Senator Lyons), Erick Devine (Senator Jones), Michael Mulheren (Fulton), Lewis J. Stadlen (Lippman), David Pittu (the French Ambassador), Wayne Duvall (Gilhoohey), Jeffry Denman (Sam Jenkins) as well as Eric Michael Gillett, Holly Holcomb, Todd A. Horman, Fred Inkley, Jay Lusteck, Ian Knauer, Raymond Jaramillo McLeod, Marcus Nance, Nina Negri, Greg Stone and Jacqueline Thompson. The role of Diana Devereaux is still to be cast.

Dedicated by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1943 as New York's first performing arts center with a civic mandate, New York City Center has played a defining role in the cultural life of New York City for more than half a century. Today, City Center is home to resident dance companies Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre and the Paul Taylor Dance Company, along with a range of other American and international visiting dance companies and the Manhattan Theatre Club. City Center produces the hugely successful Fall for Dance Festival and the Tony-honored Encores! Great American Musicals In Concert series. The recent announcement of a partnership with Carnegie Hall is designed to enable ambitious joint programming initiatives and a complete renovation of City Center's main stage. Proceeds from the Gala will go to support City Center's dance and theater performances, education programs, and efforts to ensure its continued vitality and excellence.

Tickets to the Gala are available by calling 212-763-1205. For more information, visit www.nycitycenter.org.

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