Benanti, Gaines, Etc. to Join LuPone for Encores! Gypsy

Laura Benanti will play Louise and three-time Tony-winner Boyd Gaines will play Herbie in Gypsy starring Tony Award-winner Patti LuPone, in the New York City Center's Encores! Summer Stars debut presentation directed by Gypsy bookwriter Arthur Laurents (West Side Story, Anyone Can Whistle, La Cage aux Folles), running July 9 - 29 at New York City Center, W. 55th Street between 6th & 7th Avenues.  A July 14 press opening is planned.

Boyd Gaines has been nominated for a Tony Award for his current role in Broadway's Journey's End.  He has won three previous Tony Awards for Contact, The Heidi Chronicles, and She Loves Me.  His other Broadway credits include the recent Twelve Angry Men, The Show Off, Cabaret, Company, and he has made many off-Broadway, film and television appearances.

Laura Benanti made her Broadway debut in the cast of Swing!, and at the age of 19, played the lead opposite Richard Chamberlain in the Broadway revival of The Sound of Music. Last season, the New Jersey-born performer was again cast in the lead role in The Wedding Singer on Broadway.

LuPone (Sweeney Todd, Evita, Anything Goes) will play Rose, the quintessential stage mother, in this musical suggested by the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee. One of the greatest musicals of all time, Gypsy is a musical fable with book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The 1959 blockbuster, originally directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins,  features some of the biggest songs in Broadway history: "Everything's Coming Up Roses," "Rose's Turn" and "Some People."

The cast (as of June 1) also includes Leigh Ann Larkin, Tony Yazbeck, Marilyn Caskey, Alison Fraser, Nancy Opel, Bill Bateman, Jim Bracchitta, Sami Gayle, Bill Raymond, Brian Reddy and Emma Rowley.   

Bank of America is the Lead Sponsor for the 2007 New York City Center Encores! Summer Stars production of Gypsy. 

New York City Center Encores! (Jack Viertel, Artistic Director) has, since 1994, celebrated the rarely-heard works of America's most important composers and lyricists.  Conceived as "concert versions," each Encores! season gives three scores the chance to be heard as originally intended by their creators.  Encores! Summer Stars will present classic works of the American musical theater, expanding the Encores! series with more fully-realized productions of memorable shows. Summer Stars will also give leading actors the chance to play roles they were born to play. Over the years, Encores! has presented the works of the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, Bock and Harnick, Burt Bacharach, Kander and Ebb, Comden and Green, and many more.  The program is the recipient of a special 2000 Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre, as well as an Outer Critics Circle Award, Lucille Lortel Award and Jujamcyn Theaters Award.

Tickets for Gypsy are available at the New York City Center Box Office (West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues), through CityTix® at 212-581-1212, or online at www.nycitycenter.org.  Tickets for the Orchestra and Grand Tier are $110 & 95; Mid-Mezzanine tickets are $50; tickets for the Rear Mezzanine and Gallery are $25.

Photo of Laura Benanti by Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.