'Partners in Preservation' Selects Helen Hayes Theatre's Second Stage as Finalist; Public Vote thru 5/21

Second Stage Theatre (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director and Casey Reitz, Executive Director) has been chosen as one of the 40 finalists in this year's Partners in Preservation program, which awards up to $250,000 to the cultural institutions that receive the most votes from its supporters. If selected, Second Stage Theatre will use the grant money to restore the façade of the company's future home, the 100-year old Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway. The finalists were presented by celebrity guest Katharine McPhee of NBC's hit "Smash" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Thursday, April 26. Second Stage at the Helen Hayes Theatre is the only Broadway theatre selected as a finalist.

"We are thrilled that American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation agree that our future Broadway home, the Helen Hayes Theatre, is a landmark building that needs to be preserved for generations of theatergoers to come" said Executive Director Casey Reitz. "We are honored to be the only Broadway theatre chosen as a Partners in Preservation finalist."

The program, sponsored by American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is a community-based initiative to raise awareness of the importance of historic places. Partners in Preservation will infuse $3 million in grants to preserve New York City's historic buildings, icons and landmarks. From April 26 to May 21, 2012, anyone 13 years of age and older, anywhere in the world can vote online – go to www.PartnersinPreservation.com or log on through Facebook at www.Facebook.com/PartnersinPreservation and vote for Second Stage. Everyone can vote up to once a day from now until May 21st. On May 22, the top three public vote-getters and the grants for their preservation projects will be revealed.

Founded in 1979 under the leadership of Artistic Director Carole Rothman, Second Stage Theatre produces a diverse range of premieres and new interpretations of America's best Contemporary Theatre, including Tiny Alice and Peter and Jerry by Edward Albee; The Good Times Are Killing Me by Lynda Barry; The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane; Little Murders by Jules Feiffer; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin; A Soldier's Play by Charles Fuller; Afterbirth: Kathy & Mo's Greatest Hits by Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy; Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo; Painting Churches and Coastal Disturbances by Tina Howe; Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants and On the Stem by Ricky Jay; Next to Normal by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey; Living Out by Lisa Loomer; This Is Our Youth and The Waverly Gallery by Kenneth Lonergan; Some Men by Terrence McNally; eurydice by Sarah Ruhl; Everyday Rapture by Dick Scanlan and Sherie Rene Scott; Let Me Down Easy by Anna Deavere Smith; Saturday Night by Stephen Sondheim; Crowns by ReGina Taylor; Uncommon Women and Others by Wendy Wasserstein; Spoils of War by Michael Weller; Before It Hits Home, Jar the Floor and Birdie Blue by Cheryl L. West; Jitney by August Wilson; Lemon Sky, Serenading Louie and Sympathetic Magic by Lanford Wilson; and Metamorphoses and The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci by Mary Zimmerman.

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