Twenty one cast members of the original 1981 Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, including leading actors Lonny Price, Ann Morrison and Jim Walton, will reunite at City Center on February 14, to attend the current Encores! production of “Merrily” and will join the current cast onstage for the finale. Both casts will join together for a verse of the heartwarming “Old Friends.”
Original cast members Mana Allen, Donna Marie Asbury, James Bonkovsky, David Cady, Liz Callaway, Daisy Prince Chaplin, Terry Finn, Paul Hyams, David Loud, Marc Moritz, Ann Morrison, Tonya Pinkins, Abby Pogrebin, Lonny Price, Forest D. Ray, Clark Sayre, Janie Scott, Tom Shea, David Shine, Gary Stevens, Jim Walton and Maryrose Wood will meet at City Center Tuesday afternoon for a reception with City Center’s Encores! cast before attending the evening performance.
The Encores! production features Colin Donnell, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Elizabeth Stanley, Betsy Wolfe, Adam Grupper and Zachary Unger.
Merrily We Roll Along, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth, is a musical about friendship and the compromise of youthful ideals, based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. The show moves backwards in time from 1976 to 1955 and examines the lives of three people whose friendship is tested by time, events, ambition and fate. It charts the rise of a songwriting team during the years of Sondheim’s own early career and includes some of his most brilliant and bruising songs, such as “Not a Day Goes By,” “Old Friends,” “Our Time” and “Opening Doors.” Merrily We Roll Along will run February 8 – 19, 2012.
New York City Center (Arlene Shuler, President & CEO) has played a defining role in the cultural life of the city for nearly 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, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and 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.” Dance has been integral to the theater’s mission from the start, and dance programs, including the annual Fall for Dance Festival and a partnership with London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre, remain central to City Center’s identity. City Center is dedicated to providing educational opportunities to New York City students and teachers with programs such as Encores! In Schools and the Young People’s Dance Series. Special workshops cater to families, seniors and other groups, while events such as the Fall for Dance DanceTalk series offer learning opportunities to the general public. City Center recently completed an extensive renovation project to revitalize and modernize its historic theater.
City Center is located on 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. Merrily We Roll Along will run for 15 performances according to the following schedule: Tuesday at 7 pm, Wednesday at 7:30 pm, Thursday and Friday at 8 pm, Saturday at 2 pm and 8 pm, and Sunday at 2 pm and 7 pm (exception: Wed. 2/15 at 7 pm). Tickets start at $25 and are available at the New York City Center Box Office (West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues), through CityTix® at 212-581-1212 , or online at www.NYCityCenter.org.
