SHE LOVES ME Coming to Musical Theatre West's Reiner Staged Reading Series

Musical Theatre West's (MTW) Reiner Staged Reading Series (RRS) presents the romantic romp She Loves Me, Saturday, December 3, at 7:00pm at its new home, the Beverly O'Neill Theater, located at the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center.

Tickets are now on Tickets are now on sale online at www.musical.org, by visiting the MTW West Ticket Office, or by calling (562) 856-1999, ext. 4. Advance general admission tickets for each performance are $27 (or $32 on the day of the performance). Seating is general admission.

The Reiner Staged Reading Series' performances bring to the stage some of Broadway's classics and forgotten gems, presented concert-style. Using minimal sets and costumes, but featuring the full script and score, the Reiner Staged Reading Series is a perfect way to celebrate the whole spectrum of musical theatre, while discovering some new favorite songs and shows. The shows are performed in their entirety with the scores performed by a live orchestra, provided by Los Angeles Musicians Collective.

She Loves Me follows the story of Georg and Amalia, two parfumerie clerks who aren't quite the best of friends. Constantly bumping heads while on the job, the sparring coworkers can't seem to find common ground. But little do they know that the anonymous romantic pen pals they have both been falling for happen to be each other! Will love continue to blossom once their identities are finally revealed? The spirited and light-hearted score features such tunes as "She Loves Me," "Tonight at Eight," and "Vanilla Ice Cream."

Written by Joe Masteroff, with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and music by Jerry Bock, She Loves Me, took Broadway by storm in 1963, earning four Tony nominations, including "Best Musical" and "Best Author" and a win for "Best Featured Actor in a Musical." The 1993 Broadway revival earned two Tony Awards and a total of nine nominations, including "Best Revival of a Musical." Earlier this year, a new revival starring Laura Benanti, Zachary Levi, Jane Krakowski, and Gavin Creel earned eight Tony nominations, including "Best Revival of a Musical" and the award for "Best Scenic Design."

The musical is actually the third adaptation of the play Parfumerie by Hungarian playwright Miklós László. In 1940 the story was adapted into the James Stewart-Margaret Sullavan film The Shop Around the Corner and the 1949 Judy Garland-Van Johnson musical In the Good Old Summertime. After the first revival of She Loves Me, a twist on the story surfaced again in 1998 as the Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan feature You've Got Mail.

The Reiner Staged Reading Series performance of She Loves Me is under the direction of David Lamoureux, who also stars in the performance as Georg Nowak. The cast also features Broadway and regional talent, including Jill Van Velzer (RRS: The Secret Garden, The Most Happy Fella, On the Twentieth Century) as Amalia Balash; Norman Large (B'way: The Phantom of the Opera, The Woman in White) as Zoltan Maraczek; Julie Cardia (MTW: Memphis, Regional: Anything Goes, The Full Monty) as Ilona Ritter; Zachary Ford (RRS: The Secret Garden, On the Twentieth Century; MTW: Young Frankenstein) as Steven Kodaly, Bryan Dobson (RRS: Li'l Abner; Regional: 1776)

as Ladislav Sipos; and Connor Marsh (Regional: Marry Me a Little, Titanic) as Arpad Laszlo. The series is produced by Michael Betts and David Lamoureux and is made possible by a generous donation from Ken & Dottie Reiner with additional funding provided by The Ackerman Family/Evalyn M. Bauer Foundations, Kathy Baker Campbell, Joe P. Moore, Jr. & Edna Moore, Pat & Janice DeRouen, and Marian Pincombe. The series orchestra is generously provided by Los Angeles Musicians Collective.

Tickets are now on sale for this one-night-only special performance. For tickets go to www.musical.org or call (562) 856-1999, ext.

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