Bussert, Farina, Etc. Join March 'My Fair Lady' Concert

More stars have signed on to The New York Philharmonic's presentation of Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady, which will play four semi-staged performances, March 7-10, 2007.

Joining the cast are Meg Bussert (Camelot, Brigadoon) as Mrs. Pearce, Philippe Castagner (Fidelio at the Met) as Freddy Eynsford-Hill, Michael J. Farina (In My Life) as Jamie, and Joe Grifasi (Dinner at Eight, The Mystery of Edwin Drood) as Harry. The musical - a New York Philharmonic premiere - will also star the previously announced Kelli O'Hara (Eliza Doolittle); Kelsey Grammer (Professor Henry Higgins); Charles Kimbrough (Colonel Hugh Pickering); Brian Dennehy (Alfred Doolittle); Marni Nixon (Mrs. Higgins, Henry's mother); and Tim Jerome (Professor Zoltan Karpathy), all of whom will perform the musical along with the musicians of the New York Philharmonic on the stage of Avery Fisher Hall.

James Brennan (Fanny Hill) will direct, with choreography by Peggy Hickey.  Award-winning Broadway conductor Rob Fisher will lead the performances. Thomas Z. Shepard is the producer.

My Fair Lady, the multi-award-winning musical, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, first appeared on Broadway on March 15, 1956. "Adapted from George Bernard Shaw's 1912 play and Gabrial Pascal's motion picture, Pygmalion, the show starred Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins, Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle, and Stanley Holloway as Alfred P. Doolittle, and ran for 2,717 performances, winning numerous Tony Awards and other kudos. The story, about a Cockney flower girl who is trained by a bachelor linguistics expert to speak proper English in six months' time as part of a daring challenge, was also made into a 1964 film that starred Audrey Hepburn - whose singing voice was dubbed by Marni Nixon - with Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway reprising their stage roles," state press notes.

The musical received numerous awards and nominations, including 1957 Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Actor in a Musical (Rex Harrison), Best Scenic Design (Oliver Smith), Best Choreography (Hanya Holm), Conductor and Musical Director (Franz Allers), and Best Direction (Moss Hart).

Visit www.newyorkphilharmonic.org for more information.

Photo of Meg Bussert by Linda Lenzi