AN EVENING WITH KELLI O'HARA Comes to The Sandler Center In May

Virginia Arts Festival will present Kelli O'Hara, with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and music director and conductor Rob Fisher, in a performance of Broadway classics and more, May 16 at 7:30 PM at the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia Beach.

Kelli O'Hara's Broadway credentials are stunning; she has enchanted audiences in 11 musicals including Kiss Me Kate, The Bridges of Madison County, and South Pacific, garnering eight Tony Award nominations along the way. She won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, along with Grammy, Drama League and Outer Critics nominations for her portrayal of Anna Leonowens in The King and I. She then reprised the role while making her West End (London) debut, garnering a prestigious Olivier Nomination for her performance. Her 2024 performance in the new Broadway musical Days of Wine and Roses drew rave reviews.

O'Hara is possessed of a gorgeous voice as much at home on the opera stage as on Broadway; she has wowed critics in three productions at the Metropolitan Opera, including Lehar's The Merry Widow, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, and Kevin Puts' The Hours. A gifted actress, she has also won millions of fans on television including her ongoing role in the hit HBO series The Gilded Age.

In her Virginia Arts Festival performance, O'Hara joins famed Broadway music director Rob Fisher-the Festival's Goode Family Artistic Advisor for Musical Theater and American Songbook-and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra for a spellbinding evening of song, including Broadway favorites and a new work by celebrated American composer Libby Larsen, which sets to enchanting music lovely poems by former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo.

Tickets are on sale now, online at vafest.org, by phone at (757) 282-2822, or at the Festival Ticket Office, 440 Bank St., Norfolk (Monday-Friday, 10am-5pm and Saturday, 10am-2pm).