Photo Flash: Patti LuPone Opens ANNIE GET YOUR GUN at Ravinia

On August 13, Ravinia opened its three-day run of Irving Berlin's hit-filled Broadway classic ANNIE GET YOUR GUN. Taking on her third Merman role, Patti LuPone stars as the sharp-shooter opposite Patrick Cassidy as Frank Butler and George Hearn as Buffalo Bill Cody. The production is directed by Lonny Price with Paul Gemignani leading the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The shows, Aug. 13 through 15, begin at 7:30 p.m.

With music and lyrics by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields, Annie Get Your Gun tells the fictionalized tale of the sharpshooter whose talent led her to a starring role in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in the 1880s. The score includes such classics as "There's No Business Like Show Business," "Anything You Can Do" and "You Can't Get a Man With a Gun." Directed by Joshua Logan, the original 1946 production starred Ethel Merman and Ray Middleton.

With her bigger-than-life vocalism, LuPone is the obvious heiress to the mantle of the legendary Ethel Merman, winning a Drama Desk Award and Tony nomination for Anything Goes and a Tony Award for her take on Mama Rose from Gypsy, a role she first assumed at Ravinia before taking it to Broadway.

Starring as Frank Butler in the 1999-2001 Broadway production of Annie Get Your Gun, Broadway and film star Cassidy will revive his role in Ravinia's new production. Most recently he starred in It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman, recreating the role his father, Tony Award-winner Jack Cassidy, played in 1966.

Starring in the title role of Ravinia's first Sondheim production, Sweeney Todd in 2001, Tony Award-winner Hearn has continued to appear in the festival's music Theater Productions playing Frederik Egerman in A Little Night Music, Tony in The Most Happy Fella and King Arthur in Camelot.
Price has earned great acclaim for Ravinia's Sondheim productions, several of which have been re-staged for the New York stage and for television, with Emmy Awards going to Sweeney Todd and Passion.

Longtime Sondheim collaborator and musical director of Ravinia's productions of Passion, Sunday in the Park with George, Anyone Can Whistle, Gypsy and Camelot, Gemignani returns to lead the CSO.

Photo Credit: Russell Jenkins/Ravinia Festival