Chip Zien & Sierra Boggess Will Lead The Cast of Barry Manilow Musical HARMONY At Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene

National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene today announced that musical theatre icons Chip Zien and Sierra Boggess will lead the cast of the acclaimed musical Harmony by the legendary Barry Manilow and his longtime collaborator Bruce Sussman in March 2022. At the helm will be Tony Award-winner Warren Carlyle directing the New York debut of this captivating musical.

The musical tells the true story of the Comedian Harmonists, an ensemble of six talented young men in 1920s Germany who took the world by storm with their signature blend of sophisticated close harmonies and uproarious stage antics, until their inclusion of Jewish singers put them on a collision course with history.

Chip Zien most recently was seen as the bombastic Mr. Stopnick in The Roundabout's acclaimed production of Caroline, or Change. He created the central role of the Baker in Sondheim/Lapine's award-winning Into The Woods (L.A. Drama-Logue Award, Outer Critics nomination) and created the role of Mendel in William Finn's highly decorated Falsettos.

He was seen on Broadway in It Shoulda Been You, preceded by The Big Knife, The Roundabout's The People in the Picture, The Country Girl directed by Mike Nichols and as Thenardier in the revival of LES MISERABLES. He appeared in Tommy Tune's Grand Hotel playing Otto Kringelein, the memorable dancing bookkeeper. Other Broadway credits include The Boys From Syracuse, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, All Over Town directed by Dustin Hoffman, The Suicide with Derek Jacobi.

On TV, Mr. Zien appeared on the final season of House of Cards. He received excellent notices for his recurring role on HBO's The Night Of. He has been a series regular on The Caroline Rhea Show, Almost Perfect, Now And Again, Deadline, Shell Game, Love, Sidney, and Reggie. Through the years Mr. Zien guested on over 50 popular shows, as well as numerous pilots.

His film career has been varied. His most recent featured role was in the just completed Simchas and Sorrows. He played the Chief Executive to the President of the United States in The Siege and was the voice of the infamous Howard the Duck.

Additionally, Mr. Zien has performed his solo cabaret and concert act at 54 Below and his CD, Seriously Upbeat, recorded live, is available on the web. Mr. Zien attended the University of Pennsylvania. His wife, Susan Pilarre, is a former soloist with the NYC Ballet and currently teaches at the School of American Ballet. They are the proud parents of two wonderful daughters and three grandchildren.

Sierra Boggess has been seen on Broadway in the Tony nominated musical School Of Rock, It Shoulda Been You directed by David Hyde Pierce, two separate engagements of the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera (the first for the show's 25th Anniversary and the second opposite Norm Lewis), the revival of Master Class (opposite Tyne Daly) and The Little Mermaid (Drama Desk and Drama League nominations, Broadway.com Audience Choice Award).

London theatre credits include LES MISERABLES, the 25th-anniversary concerts of The Phantom of the Opera at Royal Albert Hall and Love Never Dies (Olivier Award nomination).

Other New York theater credits include the Manhattan Concert Productions' The Secret Garden at Lincoln Center; the one-night-only concert of Guys & Dolls at Carnegie Hall opposite Nathan Lane, Patrick Wilson and Megan Mullally; the final Off-Broadway cast of Love, Loss, and What I Wore; and Music in the Air for City Center's Encores! series. She also starred as Christine Daae in the Las Vegas production of The Phantom of the Opera. Regionally, she has been seen in Into The Woods (Hollywood Bowl), Ever After (Alliance Theatre), Age of Innocence (world premiere, Hartford Stage and McCarter Theatre), Princesses (world premiere, Goodspeed Opera House and Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre), and the national tour of LES MISERABLES.

Film and Television credits include Vulture Club with Susan Sarandon and the web series What's Your Emergency, directed by Michael Urie.

Her recordings include School Of Rock, It Shoulda Been You, the 25th-anniversary concert of The Phantom of the Opera (also on DVD), the symphonic recording of Love Never Dies, The Little Mermaid, and Andrew Lippa's A Little Princess. Concert appearances include the BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall, Lincoln Center's American Songbook series The Lyrics of David Zippel, The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, and Broadway by the Year at Town Hall. Sierra has toured all over the world across Australia, Japan, Paris, and London with her concert show, which has been preserved live and released on CD, Awakening: Live at 54 Below. She recently released an album of duets with Julian Ovenden made during the pandemic entitled Together At A Distance. www.sierraboggess.com

Harmony is based in part on The Comedian Harmonist Archive as curated by the late Dr. Peter Czada.

Fresh from the stellar success of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, which won multiple honors including a 2019 Drama Desk Award, NYTF will present Harmony in English, with previews beginning on March 23, 2022, and the production running from April 13-May 8, 2022, in the newly renovated Edmond J. Safra Hall theatre at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Place, NYC. For tickets to Harmony, visit NYTF.org or call 855-449-4658. Contact 212-655-7653 for all other inquiries.

Immediately preceding Harmony, NYTF and New York City Opera (Michael Capasso, General Director) join forces to present the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon's (Intimate Apparel, Ellen West) new opera The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, based on Giorgio Bassani's 1962 novel (considered a modern classic which is also the basis for Vittorio De Sica's 1970 film adaptation starring Dominique Sanda and Helmet Berger - a 1972 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film). With a libretto by Michael Korie (Flying Over Sunset, War Paint, Grey Gardens), The Garden Of The Finzi-Continis is set on the eve of World War II and tells the story of an aristocratic Italian-Jewish family, the Finzi-Continis, who believe they will be immune to the changes happening around them. As they make a gracious haven for themselves in their garden, walling out the unpleasantness of the world outside, Italy forms its alliance with Germany and begins to enforce anti-Semitic racial laws. But the Finzi-Continis discover too late that no one is immune, no one is untouchable. A strictly limited engagement begins on January 27, 2022.

Directing and choreographing Harmony will be Tony Award winner and Emmy-nominated Warren Carlyle. Carlyle won a 2014 Tony Award for his choreography for After Midnight, for which he was also Tony Award-nominated as Best Director. Carlyle was again nominated for a 2019 Tony Award for his choreography for the critically acclaimed revival of Kiss Me Kate. Other Broadway credits include Hello, Dolly!, She Loves Me, On the Twentieth Century, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, A Christmas Story, and Chaplin. He directed and choreographed Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway, as well as Hugh Jackman's 2019 World Tour. He also choreographs the current Broadway revival of The Music Man starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster.

"I'm thrilled to be directing Harmony and helping bring this show to New York. It's an important message and it could not have found a better home to start a New York run than the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust," Warren Carlyle said.

NYTF Artistic Director Zalmen Mlotek said, "The core of NYTF's mission will always be the promotion of the great literary, dramatic and musical traditions of the Yiddish theater. We will venture beyond Yiddish when presented with opportunities to tell important Jewish stories, in other languages, particularly when these stories otherwise would not be told." He continued, "The storied career of the Comedian Harmonists, one of the most popular performers in pre-war Europe, represents how antisemitism can infect even the most 'civilized' of societies. The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene is proud to bring their story to a wider public by presenting Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman's remarkable musical Harmony."

"In our long and exciting collaboration, nothing thrills us more than today's announcement that our beloved Harmony is coming to the National Yiddish Theatre Foksbiene in New York. This is what we've always wanted to do-create an original show with an original score based on a story that needs to be told," Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman said.

This production is being produced in association with Ken Davenport and Sandi Moran. Davenport most recently won a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical for Once on This Island and a Tony Award for Best Musical for Kinky Boots, and received Tony Award nominations for Spring Awakening (Revival of a Musical), The Visit (Musical), and You're Welcome America (Special Theatrical Event). Garry C. Kief is serving as producer. Additional producers are Amuse Inc., Susan DuBow, Mapleseed Productions, Michelle Kaplan, and Neil Gooding Productions. Miranda Gohh is serving as associate producer. This presentation is being produced in association with Wilfried Rimensberger of Stiletto Entertainment.

Now celebrating its 107th season, Tony Award-nominated and Drama Desk Award-winning National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (NYTF) is the longest consecutively producing theatre in the US and the world's oldest continuously operating Yiddish theatre company. NYTF is in residence at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Zalmen Mlotek and Executive Director Dominick Balletta, NYTF is dedicated to creating a living legacy through the arts, connecting generations and bridging communities. NYTF aims to bring history to life by reviving and restoring lost and forgotten work, commissioning new work, and adapting pre-existing work for the 21st Century. Serving a diverse audience comprised of performing arts patrons, cultural enthusiasts, Yiddish-language aficionados and the general public, the company presents plays, musicals, concerts, lectures, interactive educational workshops and community-building activities in English and Yiddish, with English and Russian supertitles accompanying performances. NYTF provides access to a century-old cultural legacy and inspires the imaginations of the next generation to contribute to this valuable body of work.

NYTF's production of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish sold out for six months before moving uptown to Off-Broadway's Stage 42. It won a Drama Desk Award (outstanding revival of a musical), an Outer Critics Circle Award (outstanding revival of a musical), a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award special citation, a Lucille Lortel Award (outstanding lead actor, Steven Skybell); and an Off-Broadway Alliance award (best musical revival). It was nominated for additional Drama Desk Awards (outstanding director of a musical, Joel Grey; outstanding actor in a musical, Steven Skybell; outstanding orchestrations, Larry Blank); Lucille Lortel Awards (outstanding revival; outstanding director, Joel Grey; outstanding featured actress in a musical, Jackie Hoffman); Drama League Awards (outstanding revival of a musical; distinguished performance award, Steven Skybell); Outer Critics Circle Awards (outstanding director of a musical, Joel Grey; outstanding actor in a musical, Steven Skybell); and a Chita Rivera Award (outstanding ensemble).