Rachel York to Set Sail in ANYTHING GOES National Tour; Kicks Off October 2

Roundabout Theatre Company has announced that critically acclaimed Broadway actress Rachel York will star as "Reno Sweeney" in the national tour of the 2011 Tony® Award winning Anything Goes.  Presented by Roundabout Theatre Company, the national tour will set sail in Cleveland this fall. Anything Goes is the winner of three Tony® Awards including Best Musical Revival.

Following its opening at Cleveland's PlayhouseSquare in October 2012, Roundabout Theatre Company's ANYTHING GOES will cruise into more than 25 other cities during the 2012/2013 season including Los Angeles, Tampa, Durham, Pittsburgh, St. Paul, Washington D.C., Costa Mesa and San Francisco. Additional cities and casting will be announced in the coming months. For more information, please visit www.anythinggoesthemusical.com.

"I have always been a great fan of Anything Goes.  It's wonderful fun and perfectly constructed," said Ms. York. "I'm really looking forward to playing Reno Sweeney in this fabulous production by Kathleen Marshall and to share some of my favorite Cole Porter classics with the country."

"Our priority with the national tour of Anything Goes is to maintain the quality we currently have with the Broadway production," said Todd Haimes, Artistic Director of the Roundabout Theatre Company.  "The role of 'Reno' must be played by a triple threat actress who can act, sing and dance.   We are so happy to have Rachel York lead the company.  Rachel will mesmerize audiences across the country with her outstanding performance." 

Roundabout Theatre Company's Tony Award winning production of Anything Goes starring Stephanie J. Block & Joel Grey, directed & choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, is currently playing at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, NYC.

Rachel York is best known for her critically acclaimed Broadway performances in City of Angels, Les Misérables, Victor/Victoria (Drama Desk Award), The Scarlet Pimpernel, Sly Fox, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. She also turned heads on television with her courageous portrayal of Lucille Ball in the CBS movie, "Lucy."

On tour, Ms. York has created the role of Cruella de Vil in The 101 Dalmatians Musical; starred as Guenevere in Camelot (Carbonell Award) and portrayed Lilli Vanessi/Kate in Kiss Me, Kate (US and West End). Favorite regional productions include The King and I; The Game (a musical adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses); Turn of the Century (Goodman Theatre, Chicago); Anything Goes (Los Angeles, Ovation nomination); Hello, Dolly! (Boston, IRNE Award); Into the Woods (Boston, IRNE Award); Spamalot; My One and Only; Ragtime; Evita; Summer of '42; Summer and Smoke; Crucifer of Blood; and The Odd Couple with Jason Alexander and Martin Short.

In concert, Ms. York's numerous appearances include performances with the National Symphony; the Pittsburgh Pops; the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony; the San Francisco Symphony; the Minnesota Orchestra; the Utah Symphony; the St. Louis Symphony; the San Diego Symphony; the Colorado Symphony Orchestra; the Israeli Opera; and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. She has also performed her celebrated cabaret For the Love of It to rave reviews nationwide.

Ms. York's film credits include One Fine Day, Happy Feet, Billy Bathgate, Killer Instinct, Second Honeymoon, Au Pair II, and the CBS made for television movie, "Lucy." Her performances in Kiss Me, Kate (filmed for PBS's Great Performances series) and Victor/Victoria are available on video/DVD. Ms. York has also appeared on several popular TV series. 

Ms. York's debut solo album, Let's Fall in Love, has been an enormous success and can be heard on the soundtrack of Billy Bathgate, the live in concert recording of Broadway Showstoppers: Best of the Tonys with Peter Nero and the Philly Pops, and the original cast recordings of City of Angels, Putting It Together, Victor/Victoria, The Scarlet Pimpernel Encore, Dessa Rose, and Summer of '42. For more information, please visit her on the web at www.rachelyork.net.

Winner of three 2011 Tony® Awards including Best Revival of a Musical and Choreography, Roundabout Theatre Company's ANYTHING GOES continues on Broadway with Stephanie J. Block and Joel Grey at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. 

Director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall won the 2011 Tony® Award for Best Choreography. 

Roundabout Theatre Company's ANYTHING GOES features music and lyrics by Cole Porter; original book by P.G. Wodehouse & Guy Bolton and Howard Lindsay & Russel Crouse; and new book by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman.

Cole Porter's roundup of nostalgic hits in the production include "You're the Top," "Friendship," "I Get a Kick Out of You," "It's De-Lovely," "Blow, Gabriel, Blow" and, of course "Anything Goes."

The creative team for the Broadway production includes Bill Elliott (additional orchestrations), Rob Fisher (musical supervisor) and David Chase (dance arranger). The design team includes Derek McLane (sets), Martin Pakledinaz (costumes), Peter Kaczorowski (lights) and Brian Ronan (sound).

This 1934 musical comedy about the lovers, liars and clowns on a transatlantic cruise is "a daffy, shipshape romp!" - Variety. When the S.S. American heads out to sea, etiquette and convention head out the portholes as two unlikely pairs set off on the course to true love… proving that sometimes destiny needs a little help from a crew of singing sailors, an exotic disguise and some good old-fashioned blackmail.

The New Broadway Cast Recording of Roundabout Theatre Company's ANYTHING GOES, nominated for a 2011 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theatre Album, is available on Ghostlight Records.

ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANY (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) was most recently represented across the country with the critically acclaimed, multi-award-winning national tour of Twelve Angry Men that toured the country for 2 years, spending 63 weeks across the United States and Canada. Roundabout's longest-running musical, the revival of Cabaret, received a multi-year tour across the country beginning in 1999. In 2011, Roundabout Theatre Company's acclaimed work reached a worldwide cinema audience with the HD capture and broadcast of their Tony nominated production of The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Brian Bedford.

Now in its 46th season, Roundabout has become one of New York City's most accomplished cultural institutions and one of the country's largest not-for-profit theatre companies. With four theatres both on Broadway and off, Roundabout reaches over 600,000 theater goers annually, including over 35,000 subscribers, through award-winning productions of classical and contemporary plays and musicals. In addition to providing an artistic home for many of the finest actors, playwrights, composers and directors of our time, Roundabout is home to model education and outreach programs designed to diversify and develop the theatre's audiences. With four distinctive homes, the American Airlines Theatre, Studio 54 and the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, site of the Laura Pels Theatre and Black Box Theatre, Roundabout has the unique ability to do high-quality, professional stagings of work in a venue perfectly suited to enhance each production. Roundabout also programs the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, where its 2011 Tony Award winning production of Anything Goes currently plays. Since moving to Broadway 20 years ago, Roundabout productions have received 177 Tony nominations, 163 Drama Desk nominations and 187 Outer Critics Circle nominations. Production highlights include Anna Christie, She Loves Me, A View from the Bridge, 1776, Nine, Assassins, Intimate Apparel, The Understudy, The Pajama Game, Sunday in the Park with George, Waiting for Godot, The Importance of Being Earnest and Cabaret, one of the longest-running musical revivals in Broadway history.

Roundabout Theatre Company's 2011-2012 season features John Osborne's Look Back in Anger, directed by Sam Gold; Marc Camoletti's Don't Dress For Dinner starring Ben Daniels, Adam James, Patricia Kalember and Jennifer Tilly, adapted by Robin Hawdon, directed by John Tillinger; Simon Gray's The Common Pursuit, directed by Moisés Kaufman; Mary Chase's Harvey starring Jim Parsons, Jessica Hecht & Charles Kimbrough, directed by Scott Ellis. Roundabout's Tony Award winning production of Anything Goes starring Stephanie J. Block & Joel Grey, directed & choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, is currently playing at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. The 2011 Tony® Award winning Anything Goes will set sail on a National Tour at Cleveland's Playhouse Square in October 2012.  Following its opening in Cleveland, Anything Goes will cruise into more than 25 other cities during the 2012/2013 season.

Roundabout Theatre Company's 2012-2013 season features Rupert Holmes' The Mystery of Edwin Drood starring Chita Rivera, directed by Scott Ellis; William Inge's Picnic directed by Sam Gold; Steven Levenson's The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin directed by Scott Ellis. 

Creative Bios:

Kathleen Marshall received 2011 Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Awards for choreography and Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics nominations for direction for Roundabout Theatre Company's Anything Goes. Also for Roundabout, Kathleen directed and choreographed The Pajama Game and choreographed Follies and 1776. Other Broadway credits include Wonderful Town; Grease; Boeing-Boeing; Little Shop of Horrors; Seussical; Kiss Me, Kate; and Swinging on a Star. Off-Broadway: Two Gentlemen of Verona (New York Shakespeare Festival), Saturday Night (Second Stage), Violet (Playwrights Horizons) and As Thousands Cheer (Drama Dept). City Center Encores!: Bells Are Ringing, Applause, Carnival, Hair and Babes in Arms; Artistic Director for four seasons. For ABC/Disney: "Once Upon a Mattress" and Meredith Willson's "The Music Man" (Emmy nomination). She has received two Tony Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, two Outer Critics Circle Awards, the Astaire Award, the George Abbott Award, the Richard Rodgers Award and the Pennsylvania Governor's Award for the Arts. Ms. Marshall is the Vice President of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and is an Associate Artist of the Roundabout Theatre Company. For Scott, Ella and Nathaniel.

Cole Porter (Music & Lyrics) was born in Peru, Indiana, in 1891. He graduated from Yale, where his football songs are still popular. After the failure of his first Broadway show, he lived in Europe, where he married legendary beauty Linda Lee Thomas. Returning to New York in the late 1920s he gained renown for many great songs, including "Night and Day," "Begin the Beguine," "You're the Top" and "I Get a Kick Out of You." His 1930s were highlighted by such Broadway offerings as Anything Goes, Gay Divorce and Jubilee. A crippling riding accident in 1937 left him in constant pain, yet he continued to write memorable scores, among them Can-Can, Silk Stockings and his masterpiece, Kiss Me, Kate. He died in 1964.

Guy Bolton (1884-1979) and P.G. WODEHOUSE (1881-1975) were both born in England. They were introduced by Jerome Kern, and he suggested they all work together. They did, tirelessly, and in the beginning of their collaboration wrote nearly one show per month - the famed Princess Theatre musicals. Bolton and Wodehouse went on to write more than 20 musicals together. Usually, they collaborated on the book, and Wodehouse wrote the lyrics. Both lived into their nineties, and both, together and individually, were astoundingly prolific. Bolton, with one collaborator or another, or on his own, had a hand in well over 100 musicals and straight plays as well as numerous film scripts and novels. Wodehouse wrote 97 books - most notably the "Jeeves" novels - and countless short stories, articles, essays and films, and in 1975 was knighted side by side with Charlie Chaplin. In addition to Anything Goes, their work together includes Have A Heart; Oh! Boy; Leave It to Jane; Oh, Lady! Lady!!; Sitting Pretty; Oh, Kay! and Rosalie. They remained friends and neighbors (in Remsenburg, NY) throughout their final days.

Howard Lindsay & Russel Crouse (Co-Authors of the Original Book). The Lindsay and Crouse partnership stands today as the longest collaboration of any writers in theatrical history, lasting for more than 28 years. They first joined forces in 1934, when the producer Vinton Freedley brought them together to rewrite the libretto for Anything Goes (which Lindsay directed). Two years later, they wrote another Cole Porter show, Red, Hot and Blue. Their first straight play, Life With Father, opened in1939 and holds the record for the longest-running play on Broadway, at 3,224 performances. Lindsay and his wife, Dorothy Stickney, created the roles of Clarence and Vinnie Day, performing them for five years. Among other shows, Lindsay and Crouse also wrote The Sound of Music (score by Rodgers and Hammerstein); the Pulitzer Prize-winning State of the Union; Call Me Madam and Mr. President (scores by Irving Berlin); The Prescott Proposals and The Great Sebastians. They produced The Hasty Heart, Detective Story and Arsenic and Old Lace. Howard Lindsay (1889-1968) was an actor, stage manager, director and playwright before teaming up with Crouse. Russel Crouse (1893-1966) was a newspaperman, a press agent for The Theatre Guild, the author of several books and a librettist before partnering with Lindsay. He later produced, in collaboration with his wife, Anna Erskine Crouse, a son, the writer Timothy Crouse, and a daughter, the actress Lindsay Crouse.

Timothy Crouse (Co-Author of the New Book) has been a contributing editor of Rolling Stone and the Village Voice, as well as the Washington columnist for Esquire, writing numerous articles for these and other publications, including the New Yorker. He is the author of The Boys on the Bus, a classic account of the role of the press in presidential campaigns. With Luc Brébion he translated Roger Martin du Gard's Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort (Knopf, 2000). He is currently writing short stories, one of which, "Sphinxes," was included in the O. Henry Prize Stories 2005. He is the son of one of the original authors of Anything Goes, Russel Crouse. 

John Weidman (New Book) has written the books for a wide variety of musicals, among them Pacific Overtures, Assassins and Road Show, all with scores by Stephen Sondheim; Contact, co-created with director/choreographer Susan Stroman; Happiness, score by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie, directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman; and Take Flight and Big, scores by Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire. Since his children were pre-schoolers, Weidman has written for "Sesame Street," receiving more than a dozen Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing for a Children's Program. From 1999 to 2009 he served as president of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/WM Photos