Sheldon Harnick and Jeanine Tesori Join Victoria Clark February 6 at City Center

Tony Award-winner Victoria Clark will host "Backstage at Encores!," a Studio 5 at City Center event, on Monday, February 6 at 6:30 pm at City Center.  Joining Clark for an informal conversation will be Encores! Artistic Director Jack Viertel, Tony Award-winning lyricist Sheldon Harnick and composer/arranger Jeanine Tesori.  Studio Five events take place in the Barbara and David Zalaznick Studio at City Center, 130 West 56th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues). 

The February 6 conversation will look at today's musical hits as possible future Encores! productions. Harnick and Tesori are  two artists whose shows have been and will be part of the Encores! tradition: Sheldon Harnick, best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on hit musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof, has had several Encores! revivals over the years, including Fiorello!, Tenderloin, She Loves Me, and The Apple Tree. Tesori is the award-winning composer of shows such as Violet; Caroline, Or Change; Thoroughly Modern Millie; and Shrek the Musical. The pair will join Clark and Viertel to discuss the changes in this eclectic art form and predict what we can expect in the decades ahead.   

Sheldon Harnick's career began in the 1950s with songs in revues both on and off-Broadway (e.g., The Boston Beguine, Merry Little Minuet). In 1957 he teamed with Jerry Bock to create a number of memorable musicals including Fiorello! (Tony Award, Pulitzer Prize), She Loves Me (Grammy), Fiddler on the Roof (Tony), The Apple Tree, and The Rothschilds. Other musicals:Rex (Richard Rodgers), A Wonderful Life (Joe Raposo), A Christmas Carol (Michel Legrand), The Phantom Tollbooth (with Arnold Black and co-librettist Norton Juster), and his own Dragons. Mr. Harnick also contributed songs to the films The Heartbreak Kid and Blame It On Rio (music by Cy Coleman), and Aaron's Magic Village (music: Michel Legrand). In the 1970s Mr. Harnick expanded his activities by translating The Merry Widow (for Beverly Sills), Carmen, Ravel's The Enchanted Child, and Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale. The 1970s also saw Mr. Harnick's entry into the field of opera. His collaboration with Jack Beeson produced Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, Cyrano, and Dr. Heidegger's Fountain of Youth. Among his other opera collaborations are Coyote Tales (Henry Mollicone) and Love in Two Countries (Thomas Shepard). Mr. Harnick is a member of the Dramatists Guild and The Songwriters Guild. 

Jeanine Tesori has written four Tony-nominated scores for Broadway: Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center, Thoroughly Modern Millie (lyrics, Dick Scanlan), Caroline, or Change (lyrics, Tony Kushner), and Shrek the Musical (lyrics, David Lindsay-Abaire). The production of Caroline, or Change at the National Theater in London received the Olivier Award for Best New Musical. Her first off-Broadway musical, Violet, written with Brian Crawley, received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1997. She has been the recipient of many other honors including Drama Desk and Obie Awards, and was cited by ASCAP as being the first woman composer to have "two new musicals running concurrently on Broadway." She composed the music for The New York Shakespeare Festival's production of Brecht's Mother Courage, as translated by Tony Kushner, starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline. She has written songs for the movie Shrek The Third. Her film scores include Nights in Rodanthe, Winds of Change, Show Business, Wrestling With Angels, and Every day with Live Schreiber. Ms. Tesori's opera, A Blizzard On Marblehead Neck, is a recent commission for the Met/LCT Opera/Theater and Glimmerglass Opera. She has produced 60 CDs for Silver-Burdett Ginn's Making Music and the original cast albums for Twelfth Night, Violet and Caroline, or Change. Ms. Tesori, a Barnard graduate, is on the council of the Dramatists Guild. Her next project is Fun Home based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, with book by playwright Lisa Kron.

Jack Viertel is artistic director of Encores! and also senior vice president of Jujamcyn Theaters, which owns and operates five Broadway theaters, currently presenting The Book of Mormon, How to Succeed..., and Jersey Boys. He was a producer of the Broadway revival of Gypsy starring Patti LuPone, which was first seen in 2007 at Encores! Summer Stars, and was recently represented on Broadway by Finian's Rainbow, first seen at Encores! in the spring of 2008. He helped shepherd six of August Wilson's plays to Broadway and worked on the original Broadway productions of Angels in America, Into the Woods, and M. Butterfly, among others. Mr. Viertel conceived and co-produced the long-running musical revue Smokey Joe's Café, and conceived the Encores! revue Stairway to Paradise. He served as dramaturg for The Wedding Singer and Hairspray on Broadway and is the co-author of the musical Time and Again. Mr. Viertel spent two years as dramaturg of the Mark Taper Forum in L.A., and began his work in the theater as a critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. His musical Harps and Angels, based on the Randy Newman song catalogue, recently ran at the Mark Taper Forum. 

Victoria Clark is an award-winning actor, singer, director and teacher whose 27-year career has spanned Broadway, television, film and the concert stage. Broadway credits include: Sister Act (Tony, Drama Desk and outer Critics Circle nominations), The Light in the Piazza (Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards), Urinetown, Cabaret, Titanic, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Guys and Dolls, A Grand Night for Singing, Drood and Sunday in the Park With George. Her off-Broadway credits include When the Rain Stops Falling, A Prayer for My Enemy, The Marriage of Bette and Boo, TresNinas, The Agony and the Agony, Marathon Dancing and Love, Loss, and What I Wore. Ms. Clark's Encores! credits includeFollies, Bye Bye Birdie and the title role in Juno. Ms. Clark starred in the New York premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon's The Grapes of Wrath at Carnegie Hall and has delighted audiences around the country with numerous concert appearances, including New York's Allen Room for Jazz at Lincoln Center. Films: Cradle Will Rock, The Happening, Main Street, Harvest. TV: "Mercy," "Law and Order," "Law and Order SVU." Ms. Clark is an internationally renowned teacher of voice, acting and musical theater and has served on the faculty of Yale University and Denmark's Musical Academy in Fredericia, Denmark.  

Studio 5 at City Center is made possible in part by Margee and John Falk and Barbara and David Zalaznick. 

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. Last year, City Center completed an extensive renovation project to revitalize and modernize its historic theater.

Backstage at Encores!, on Monday, February 6 at 6:30 pm, will be held in the Barbara and David Zalaznick Studio at City Center, 5th floor, 130 West 56th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues). Tickets are $20 and must be purchased in advance via CityTix® at 212-581-1212, online at www.NYCityCenter.org or at the City Center Box Office (West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues).

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