Stacy Keach Joins 'Camelot' Cast at the NY Philharmonic

Stacy Keach - who has portrayed everyone from Hamlet and Napoleon to the hardboiled detective Mike Hammer on television - will make his New York Philharmonic debut guest starring as the magician, Merlyn, King Arthur's tutor, in the Philharmonic's semi-staged presentation of Lerner and Loewe's Camelot, May 7-10, 2008. Also joining the cast is soprano Erin Morley, a member of The Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, who will portray Nimue, the nymph who lures Merlyn into her cave and eternal sleep.

They join a star-studded cast starring Gabriel Byrne (King Arthur), who recently starred in HBO's In Treatment; Marin Mazzie (Guenevere), who was nominated for a Tony Award for her role in Kiss Me Kate; acclaimed baritone Nathan Gunn (Lancelot), who
has sung in opera companies around the world; Christopher Lloyd (Pellinore), the stage and film actor who appeared in the Back to the Future trilogy; and Fran Drescher, who starred in the television series, The Nanny. Lonny Price directs; Josh Prince is the choreographer; Paul Gemignani is the conductor and music supervisor; and Thomas Z. Shepard is the producer. The cast also includes Bobby Steggert (Mordred); Christopher Sieber (Dinadan); Will Swenson (Sagramore); and Mark Kudisch (Lionel).

The May 8, 2008, performance will be broadcast on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS.

Stacy Keach (Merlyn) is a familiar face to theater, film, and television audiences. On television he is well known for his portrayal of the detective, Mike Hammer, in a series of made-for-television films based on the Mickey Spillane mysteries. He is also known to younger generations for his portrayal of the irascible dad, Ken Titus, in the Fox sitcom Titus and, more recently, of Warden Henry Pope in the series Prison Break. Following his recent title role in King Lear at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, he joined the starring cast of John Sayles's film Honeydripper. He recently completed filming Deathmatch for the Spike channel, and The Boxer for Zeitsprung Productions in Berlin. Stacy Keach began his film career in the late 1960s with The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, followed by The New Centurions with George C. Scott. He played Doc Holiday with Faye Dunaway in the film Doc; an over-the-hill boxer, Billy Tully, in Fat City; and
appeared in The Long Riders, which he co-produced and co-wrote with his brother, James, directed by Walter Hill. Mr. Keach's other directorial credits include Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy for PBS and the dramatic documentary The Repeater. On the lighter side, he portrayed Sgt. Stedenko in Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke, and in the sequel, Nice Dreams; the lecherous Wright Brother in Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud; and a crazed albino out to kill Paul Newman in Judge Roy Bean. Historical roles on television have included Napoleon, Wilbur Wright, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Barabbas, Sam Houston, and Ernest Hemingway, the last of which
garnered him a Golden Globe as Best Actor in a mini-series and an Emmy nomination in the same category. He played an eccentric painter, Mistral, in the Judith Krantz classic, Mistral's Daughter; a northern spy in the Civil War special, The Blue and The Gray; and
the pirate Benjamin Hornigold in the Hallmark epic Blackbeard. Mr. Keach began his professional career with the New York Shakespeare Festival in1964, doubling as Marcellus and the Player King in a production of Hamlet directed by Joseph Papp. He rose to prominence in 1967 in the Off-Broadway political satire, MacBird, for which he received the first of his three Obie awards. He played the title roles in Henry V, Hamlet, Richard III, Macbeth, and most recently King Lear in Robert Falls's modern adaptation at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. He will return to King Lear with Robert Falls directing in May 2009 at Washington's new Harmon Center for the
Performing Arts. Mr. Keach's Broadway credits include Indians (Tony Award nomination); Ira Levin's Deathtrap; the Pulitzer Prize-winning Kentucky Cycle (Helen Hayes Award for Best Actor); and the Rupert Holmes one-man thriller, Solitary
Confinement. His musical theater credits include the national tour of Barnum; King Arthur in Camelot for Pittsburgh's Civic Light Opera; and the King in The King and I. Most recently, he starred as Scrooge in Boston's musical production of A Christmas
Carol; as Phil Ochsner in Arthur Miller's last play, Finishing the Picture, directed by Robert Falls at the Goodman Theatre; and Jon Robin Baitz's Ten Unknowns at the Mark Taper Forum. Mr. Keach will be seen playing Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon in March 2009 at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.

Soprano Erin Morley, a native of Salt Lake City, Utah, joined The Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program in the 2007-08 season. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in February 2008 in Puccini's Manon Lescaut and Britten's
Peter Grimes, and her New York City Opera debut in October 2006 as Giannetta in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore. Additionally, she performed at the New York City Opera Gala Benefit Concert of 2006 as Sophie in the Trio and Finale from R. Strauss's Der
Rosenkavalier. Ms. Morley sang Sandrina in Mozart's La Finta Giardiniera; the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute; and Tytania in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, all at Juilliard. Other Juilliard roles have included Adele in Johann Strauss II's
Die Fledermaus; the Fire and Nightingale in Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortileges; and Nellain Puccini's Gianni Schicchi. During the summer of 2007 she sang Frasquita in Carmen in concert, Laoula in Chabrier's L'Étoile, and Papagena in Mozart's The Magic Flute with Wolf Trap Opera Company. She will return there this summer to sing Zerbinetta in R. Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos. Ms. Morley has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and Alice Tully Hall, and has been a featured soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Utah Symphony, and Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She made her New York Philharmonic debut in a Young People's Concert in October 2006, and returned in December 2007 for
another concert in the series. Erin Morley completed her artist diploma at the Juilliard Opera Center in May 2007; her master of music degree from The Juilliard School; and her bachelor of music degree from the Eastman School of Music. She won first place in the Licia Albanese-Puccini Competition of 2006. 

Tickets start at $65. All tickets may be purchased online at nyphil.org or by calling (212) 875-5656, 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. daily. Tickets may also be purchased at the Avery Fisher Hall Box Office, Lincoln Center, Broadway at 65th Street. The Box Office opens at 10:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and at noon on Sunday. On performance evenings, the Box Offices closes one half-hour after performance time; other evenings it closes at 6:00 p.m. To determine ticket availability, call the Philharmonic's Customer Relations Department at (212) 875-5656.