Ben Platt, Kelli O'Hara, Renee Elise Goldsberry & More Set For MCC's MISCAST

MCC Theater (Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey and William Cantler, Artistic Directors; Blake West, Executive Director) just announced the all-star lineup of performers set for their annual Miscast gala, celebrating the 30th Anniversary of MCC Theater. The performers include: Tony winners Annaleigh Ashford, Norbert Leo Butz, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Jennifer Holliday and Kelli O'Hara; Tony nominees Stephanie J. Block, Brian d'Arcy James and Brandon Victor Dixon; plus Dear Evan Hansen breakout Ben Platt and Hamilton star Mandy Gonzalez. Additional names will be announced shortly. This year's Miscast gala will be held Monday, April 3, 2017 at The Hammerstein Ballroom (311 West 34th Street).

Honorary Co-Chairs for Miscast 2017 include Norbert Leo Butz, Josh Charles, Hugh Dancy, Alex Dinelaris, Jenna Fischer, Jonathan Groff, Oscar Isaac, Allison Janney, Neil LaBute, Melissa Leo, Judith Light, Zosia Mamet, Julianna Margulies, Laurie Metcalf, Anna Paquin, Sarah Paulson, Piper Perabo, Lily Rabe, Thomas Sadoski, Maura Tierney and Marisa Tomei. All Honorary Co-Chairs are Artistic Alumni of MCC Theater over its last three decades.

Show-only mezzanine level tickets are now on sale and begin at $99. http://www.mcctheater.org/galamiscast.html.

MCC Theater's annual Miscast gala is one of the most exciting and unique theater events in town. Broadway's hottest stars perform songs from roles in which they would never be cast.

Proceeds from Miscast will, as always, support MCC Theater's mission to develop and produce exciting work Off-Broadway, as well as its Youth Company and partnerships with New York City public high schools, and MCC's literary development work with emerging playwrights. For over 15 years, MCC Theater's education and outreach programs have embodied our mission to provoke conversations that have never happened and otherwise never would. Our programs have grown from an eight-member Youth Company ensemble in 1999 to serving over 100 public high school students each year in several branches, including an Acting Lab, a Playwriting Lab, an Ambassadors program, two school campus-based satellite programs, and classroom partnerships. These programs empower students to achieve higher academic success and become more civically engaged. Each year 90-100% of Youth Company seniors graduate from high school in four years and enroll in college.

The schedule for the evening is as follows:

6:30 p.m. Cocktails and Hors d'oeuvres

7:30 p.m. Dinner

8:45 p.m. Miscast Revue

Last year, Miscast 2016 honored Oscar winner Marisa Tomei.

Performers from past years include: Uzo Aduba, Beth Behrs, Megan Hilty, Cynthia Erivo, Raúl Esparza, Steven Pasquale, Jeremy Jordan, Laura Benanti, Jesse L. Martin, Zosia Mamet, Aaron Tveit, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jane Krakowski and many others. Special guests have included, Andy Cohen, Charles Busch, Helen Mirren, Lewis Black, Chris Noth, Edward Albee, Kathleen Turner, Jerry Stiller, Mo Rocca, Isaac Mizrahi, and many more.

MCC Theater broke ground on its first permanent home- a two-theater complex on West 52nd Street and 10th Avenue-on March 22, 2016. Set to open in 2018, the space will unite MCC's diverse roster of programs under one roof for the first time in the company's three-decade history. The new facility will also allow MCC to expand its programming and establish it as a cultural anchor within the Clinton neighborhood. The $35 million project is funded by a public-private partnership between the Theater and the City of New York, with $30 million raised to-date.

MCC is one of New York's leading nonprofit Off-Broadway companies, driven by a mission to provoke conversations that have never happened and otherwise never would. Founded in 1986 as a collective of artists leading peer-based classes to support their own development as actors, writers and directors, the tenets of collaboration, education, and community are at the core of MCC Theater's programming. One of the only theaters in the country led continuously by its founders, Artistic Directors Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, and William Cantler, MCC fulfills its mission through the production of world, American, and New York premiere plays and musicals that challenge artists and audiences to confront contemporary personal and social issues, and robust playwright development and education initiatives that foster the next generation of theater artists and students.

Plays and musicals developed by the company have gone on to stagings around the globe. Notable productions over the course of the company's 30-year history include Robert Askins' Hand to God, nominated for five Tony Awards and transferred to London's West End; Sharr White's The Other Place, starring Laurie Metcalf; The Submission by Jeff Talbot, winner of the inaugural Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award for new American plays; Bryony Lavery's Frozen, a 2004 Tony nominee for Best play and winner for Brian F. O'Byrne's performance; Wit by Margaret Edson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1999; the classic cult musical Carrie, which has gone on to international productions since the Theater's extensive redevelopment work and staging in 2012, the first in more than two decades; and ten plays by Playwright-in-Residence Neil LaBute, including Fat Pig; reasons to be pretty, a 2009 Tony nominee for Best Play; Reasons to Be Happy; and All The Ways To Say I Love You . Blake West joined the company in 2006 as Executive Director. MCC will open its first permanent home in 2018 in Manhattan's Clinton neighborhood, unifying the company's activities under one roof for the first time and expanding its producing, artist development, and education programming. The Theater is currently in the midst of a $35 million campaign to support its expansion and growing artistic operations, with $30 million raised to-date.