Jake Gyllenhaal to Star in SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE Concert Production

New York City Center's annual Gala will be held on Monday, October 24, 2016. This special event, honoring business leader and philanthropist Adrienne Arsht, will include a concert performance of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 1984 musical Sunday in the Park with George starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Funds raised allow City Center to make the best in the performing arts accessible to the widest possible audiences by subsidizing affordable tickets throughout the year to programs such as Fall for Dance and Encores! Off-Center.

Following last summer's celebrated Encores! Off-Center production of Little Shop of Horrors, Gyllenhaal returns to City Center to star as George in Sondheim and Lapine's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece. The musical follows painter Georges Seurat in the months leading up to the completion of his most famous painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Consumed by his need to "finish the hat," Seurat alienates the French bourgeoisie, spurns his fellow artists, and neglects his lover Dot, not realizing that his actions will reverberate over the next 100 years.

The gala performance is being produced by Jeanine Tesori, in her capacity as Artistic Advisor at City Center. It will be followed by a gala dinner at The Plaza Hotel (58th Street at 5th Avenue). A limited number of performance only tickets starting at $75 will be available at NYCityCenter.org beginning at noon on May 25. Benefit Tickets are available at $2,500, $5,000 and $10,000. Tables of ten are available at $25,000, $50,000, $100,000 and $150,000. For benefit table and ticket details, please call 212.763.1205.

Stephen Sondheim (Music and Lyrics) wrote the music and lyrics for Saturday Night, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, The Frogs, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Assassins, Passion, and Road Show,as well as lyrics for West Side Story, Gypsy, and Do I Hear A Waltz?,and additional lyrics for Candide. Anthologies of his workinclude Side by Side by Sondheim, Marry Me A Little, You're Gonna Love Tomorrow, Putting It Together, and Sondheim on Sondheim. He composed the score of the film Stavisky, co-composed Reds, and wrote songs for Dick Tracy and for the television production Evening Primrose. His collected lyrics with attendant essays have been published in two volumes: Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made A Hat. In 2010 the Broadway theater formerly known as Henry Miller's Theatre was renamed in his honor.

James Lapine (Librettist) has worked with Stephen Sondheim on Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Passion. With William Finn: Falsettos, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Muscle, and Little Miss Sunshine. He also directed the City Center Encores! productions of Merrily We Roll Along and A New Brain, and the original revue Sondheim on Sondheim for the Roundabout Theatre. He has written six plays: Table Settings; Twelve Dreams; Luck, Pluck & Virtue; The Moment When; Fran's Bed; Mrs. Miller Does Her Thing; and Act One which he adapted from Moss Hart's memoir.

Jake Gyllenhaal (George) Broadway: Constellations (Drama League Award nom). Off-Broadway: Encores! Off-Center Little Shop of Horrors, If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet (Lucille Lortel and Drama League Award noms). West End: This Is Our Youth (Evening Standard Theatre Award). Films include Nightcrawler (Golden Globe, BAFTA, and SAG noms), Brokeback Mountain (Academy Award and BAFTA noms), Southpaw, Prisoners, Demolition, Enemy, Everest, End of Watch, Jarhead, Zodiac, Proof, The Good Girl, Moonlight Mile, Lovely and Amazing, October Sky, Source Code, Love & Other Drugs (Golden Globe nom), Brothers, and Donnie Darko. Upcoming films: Nocturnal Animals, Stronger, Life, Okja

Adrienne Arsht is a business leader and philanthropist. A community-minded power broker, Arsht has taken a leading role promoting artistic, business, and civic growth in the three cities she calls home: New York, Washington, D.C, and Miami. She is Founding Chairman of the Adrienne Arsht Center Foundation in Miami, Florida. In 2008, her $30 million contribution to Miami's Performing Arts Center transformed the city. The Center was renamed in her honor, the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County. Her support of the transformation of Lincoln Center's facilities and public spaces was recognized with the dedication of the Adrienne Arsht Stage in Alice Tully Hall. In Washington, she created the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at The Atlantic Council to focus on the role of South America in the trans-Atlantic community. Arsht is a Trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She established the Adrienne Arsht Theater Fund at the Kennedy Center to support a wide variety of theater productions. Arsht is a Vice Chairman of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, an Executive Vice Chairman of the Atlantic Council. She is a member of the Trustees Council of The National Gallery of Art, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and is President of the Vice President's Residence Foundation.

New York City Center (Arlene Shuler, President & CEO) has played a defining role in the cultural life of the city since 1943. It was Manhattan's first performing arts center, dedicated by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia 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, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, City Center's Principal Dance Company, as well as Manhattan Theatre Club; a roster of renowned national and international visiting artists; and its own critically acclaimed and popular programs. The Tony-honored Encores! musical theater series has been hailed as "one of the very best reasons to be alive in New York." In summer 2013, City Center launched Encores! Off-Center, a series that features landmark Off-Broadway musicals filtered through the lens of today's most innovative artists. Dance has been integral to the theater's mission from the start-and dance programs, including the annual Fall for Dance Festival, remain central to City Center's identity. Vital partnerships with arts organizations including Jazz at Lincoln Center and London's Sadler's Wells Theatre enhance City Center's programmatic offerings. City Center brings dance and musical theater to over 9,000 New York City students each year through its robust education program, and other learning opportunities are offered to seniors, families, and the general public. City Center is expanding its programming beyond the proscenium and activating its alternative spaces with pre-show talks, master classes, exhibitions of visual art, and intimate performances that give an up-close look at the work of the great theater and dance artists of our time. In October 2011, City Center completed an extensive renovation project to revitalize and modernize its historic theater.

Below, watch Jake Gyllenhaal and Ellen Greene sing the sweet duet, "Suddenly, Seymour" from last summer's ENCORES! production of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS:

Photo: Joan Marcus

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos