Encores! PIPE DREAM to Be Recorded Live; Release Set for This Summer

Rodgers & Hammerstein's PIPE DREAM will be recorded live at New York City Center's Encores! series this week, and released this Summer on Ghostlight Records. Produced by Rodgers & Hammerstein: AnImagem Company, this preservation of Rodgers & Hammerstein's 1955 Broadway musical rarity marks the first time an Encores! musical has been recorded live.

"We're always thrilled when an Encores! production gets preserved on a cast album," says Encores! Artistic Director Jack Viertel. "In this case we're doing something new -- a live recording of the actual performance -- that would have been impossible without the spectacular renovation of City Center itself, which included a new sound system that allows for multi-track recording. This particular show is so beautifully sung and played, and the score is so underappreciated, that I'm incredibly grateful to Ted Chapin and the folks at R&H that we'll have it to listen to for years to come -- forever, in fact."

"In the back of my mind I always had the hope that the Encores! presentation of PIPE DREAM would be good enough to warrant a recording," says Ted Chapin, President of Rodgers & Hammerstein. "Once I heard a run-through and the orchestra rehearsal at the end of last week, I felt we had to find a way to capture the remarkable performances of the cast and orchestra. Through a lot of quick action by a lot of extraordinary people, we were able to push the button to create a live recording. If we get lucky, this could be the way for future recordings of Encores! shows – and more of them."

Featuring a cast of 29 under the direction of Marc Bruni, and an orchestra of 30 musicians under the baton of Music Director Rob Berman, this concert staging of PIPE DREAM features the original Robert Russell Bennett orchestrations and John Morris dance arrangements, meticulously restored over the past two years by Bruce Pomahac, Director of Music at Rodgers & Hammerstein, and his team.

Bringing the score gloriously to life, to be captured on the Live album, is the Encores! cast which includes Will Chase as Doc ("All Kinds of People," "All at Once You Love Her," "The Man I Used to Be"), Laura Osnes as Suzy ("Everybody's Got a Home But Me," "The Next Time It Happens"), Leslie Uggams as Fauna ("Sweet Thursday"), Tom Wopat as Mac ("A Lopsided Bus," "The Party That We’re Gonna Have Tomorrow Night") and Stephen Wallem as Hazel ("Thinkin'").

For more information on the recording, visit http://sh-k-boom.com/pipedream.shtml. Learn more about PIPE DREAM and Rodgers & Hammerstein at www.rnh.com. Like Rodgers & Hammerstein on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rodgersandhammerstein Follow @RnH_Org.

New York City Center (Arlene Shuler, President and CEO) has played a defining role in the cultural life of the city for more than 70 years. It was Manhattan’s first performing arts center, dedicated by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1943 with a mission to make the best in music, theater and dance accessible to all audiences. Today, City Center is home to many distinguished companies, a roster of renowned national and international visiting artists; and its owncritically acclaimed and popular programs. Encores! (Artistic Director Jack Viertel and Music Director Rob Berman) celebrates the rarely heard works ofAmerica’s most important composers and lyricists. Every season, Encores! gives three glorious scores the chance to be heard as their creators originally intended. Encores! has presented the works of Harold Arlen, Burt Bacharach, Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, George and Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern, John Kander and Fred Ebb, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Stephen Sondheim, Kurt Weill and many others. The program received a special 2000 Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre, as well as an Outer Critics Circle Award, Lucille Lortel Award and Jujamcyn Theater Award.

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