Breaking News: Renée Fleming Will Make Broadway Debut in Kathleen Marshall-Helmed LIVING ON LOVE; Opens in April 2015!
By: Nicole Rosky Dec. 22, 2014
Producers Scott Landis and Philip Morgaman have confirmed that 4-time Grammy Award winner Renée Fleming will make her Broadway debut this spring in the new comedy Living on Love by two-time Tony Award winner Joe DiPietro, based on the play Peccadillo by Garson Kanin, directed by three-time Tony Award winner Kathleen Marshall. The production begins performances on Wednesday, April 1, 2015 and will open on Monday, April 20, 2015 at the Longacre Theatre (220 West 48th Street). Living on Love will play an 18-week engagement through Sunday, August 2, 2015.Tickets go on sale to the general public on Monday, December 29, 2014.
World-renowned soprano Renée Fleming takes to the stage as celebrated diva Raquel De Angelis. When Vito, her larger-than-life maestro husband, becomes enamored with the lovely young lady hired to ghostwrite his largely fictional autobiography, Raquel retaliates by hiring her own handsome, young scribe to chronicle her life as an opera star. Sparks fly, silverware is thrown, and romance blossoms in the most unexpected ways in this brand new hilarious comedy.
This production, which also starred Ms. Fleming and was directed by Ms. Marshall, was first produced and presented in July 2014 in Williamstown Massachusetts by the Williamstown Theatre Festival (Jenny Gersten, Artistic Director) by special arrangement with Scott Landis, Philip Morgaman, Bob Bartner, Roger Berlind, Just For Laughs Theatricals, Glass Half Full Productions, and TNT DynaMite Productions.
Additional cast and creative team to be announced.
RENÉE FLEMING (Raquel De Angelis) is one of the most acclaimed singers of our time. In 2013, the President awarded her America's highest honor for an individual artist, the National Medal of Arts. In February she became the first classical singer ever to perform "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Super Bowl. Winner of the 2013 Best Classical Vocal Grammy Award, she has sung at momentous occasions around the world- from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the Diamond Jubilee Concert for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. In 2008, she was the first woman in the 125-year history of The Metropolitan Opera to solo headline an opening night gala. Earlier this month, she sang at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Renée returns to The Metropolitan Opera on New Year's Eve in a new production of The Merry Widow. She has appeared in virtually all of the world's greatest opera houses and concert halls. Winner of four Grammy Awards, she released her first-ever holiday album, Christmas in New York, this fall. With a multimedia profile rare among contemporary opera singers, Renée has recorded a wide range of music, from opera and lieder to jazz and indie rock, as well as the soundtrack of the film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Known for bringing new audiences to classical music and opera, Renée has sung not only with Luciano Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo but also with Elton John, Lou Reed, Josh Groban, Joan Baez and even the Muppets. Among her awards are the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, and numerous honorary doctorates, including one from The Juilliard School. In 2010, she was named the first-ever creative consultant at Lyric Opera of Chicago. www.reneefleming.com.
JOE DiPIETRO (Playwright) has won two Tony Awards, a Drama Desk Award and 2 Outer Critics Awards. His new play, The Second Mrs. Wilson, debuts at The Long Wharf Theatre in May. His new musical, "Ernest Shackleton Loves Me opens at George Street Playhouse in April. Broadway: Nice Work If You Can Get It, Memphis, All Shook Up. Off-Broadway: The Toxic Avenger; The Thing About Men; Over the River and Through the Woods; I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change. Regional: Chasing the Song (La Jolla Playhouse), Clever Little Lies (George Street Playhouse), The Last Romance (Old Globe), Creating Claire (George Street Playhouse). His musical, Memphis is currently playing in the West End and recently received 10 WhatsOnStage Award nominations. He sits on the board of Only Make Believe, a charity dedicated to bringing interactive, therapeutic theatre to chronically ill children.
KATHLEEN MARSHALL (Director). Broadway: Nice Work If You Can Get It; Anything Goes; The Pajama Game; Wonderful Town; Grease;Little Shop of Horrors; Follies; Seussical; Kiss Me, Kate; 1776; Swinging on a Star. Off-Broadway: New York Shakespeare Festival: Two Gentlemen of Verona; Second Stage: Saturday Night; Playwrights Horizons: Violet; Drama Dept.: As Thousands Cheer. City Center Encores!:The Band Wagon, I'm Getting My Act Together..., Bells Are Ringing, Applause, Carnival, Hair, Babes in Arms, among others; Artistic Director for four seasons. Regional: Signature Theatre: Diner; Williamstown Theatre Festival: Living on Love; Denver Center Theatre: The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Film: My Week with Marilyn (Choreographer). TV: ABC/Disney: Once Upon a Mattress, The Music Man (Emmy nomination). Awards: Three Tony Awards (out of nine nominations), three Drama Desk Awards, three Outer Critics Circle Awards, the Astaire Award, the George Abbott Award, the Richard Rodgers Award and the Pennsylvania Governor's Award for the Arts. Associate Artist, Roundabout Theatre Company.
GARSON KANIN (1912-1999) was an esteemed theater and film director as well as a prolific writer. His early films include A Man to Remember and My Favorite Wife. While serving in the military during World War II, he co-directed with Carol Reed the documentary The True Glory which won an Academy Award in 1945. He followed this success by writing and directing Born Yesterday. Over the next four decades he wrote 20 plays, including Peccadillo, Remembering Mr. Maugham, The Rat Race, and The Smile of the World. He also wrote the English libretto of Fledermaus, for the Metropolitan Opera. With Ruth Gordon, whom he married in 1942, he wrote the Academy-Award nominated screenplays A Double Life, Adam's Rib and Pat and Mike. His books include Smash, Hollywood, and Tracy and Hepburn.
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