Encompass New Opera Theatre to Honor Estelle Parsons and Maury Yeston

On Sunday, January 26, 2020, Encompass New Opera Theatre (Nancy Rhodes, Artistic Director), The Board of Trustees and The Encompass Honorary Gala Chair, Sheldon Harnick will pay tribute to Academy Award and Tony Award-winning luminaries, Estelle Parsons and Maury Yeston, with a star-studded musical salute. The elegant evening - hosted by Midge Woolsey of Thirteen/WNET and WQXR Radio - will feature recollections and tributes by well-known Musical Theatre and Opera personalities and friends. Dazzling musical entertainment will feature stars of stage and screen. Beth Ertz is the Music Director/Arranger/Pianist and Jay Leonhart will perform on Bass. Michael A. Kerker of ASCAP and Nancy Rhodes of Encompass will co-produce. The 2020 Gala Chairs are Daniel J. De Siena and Deborah Surdi.

Sheldon Harnick will present Maury Yeston with the Sheldon Harnick Award for Creative Excellence and Estelle Parsons with Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in the American and Musical Theatre.

The Encompass Musical Salute will take place at The National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY, 10003) on Sunday, January 26th, starting at 5:30 PM with a Reception, Dinner at 6:30 and the Musical Program at 7:30 PM, followed by a Champagne & Dessert Party. Gala tickets are $600. To buy tickets, to place a congratulatory Ad in the program, or for more information, visit www.EncompassTheatre.org or call (718) 398-4675.

Encompass Musical Salute past honorees include Sheldon Harnick (both for his 80th and his 90th Birthdays), John Kander, Charles Strouse, Jerry Herman, Jerry Bock, Maury Yeston, Joseph Stein, Richard Maltby, Jr., David Shire, John Weidman, Marvin Hamlisch, Alan Menken, Joel Grey, Jeanine Tesori, Barbara Cook, Lee Adams, Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty, Terrence McNally, Christine Ebersole, Laura Benanti and Bartlett Sher.

Estelle Parsons has electrified audiences in a triumphant seven-decade career that has garnered her the Academy Award for her role in the film Bonnie and Clyde; a subsequent Oscar nomination for Rachel, Rachel; Tony Award nominations for Miss Margarida's Way; Mornings at Seven, and And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little; and was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2004. She debuted on Broadway in the musical Happy Hunting starring Ethel Merman, and starred in two of Weill-Brecht's works - Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, and as Mrs. Peachum to Lotte Lenya's Jenny in Threepenny Opera. For Encompass, she played Queen Elizabeth in the musical Elizabeth and Essex, based on the play by Maxwell Anderson. She also starred in Pirates of Penzance opposite Kevin Kline, George Rose, and Linda Ronstadt, and in Gershwin's Nice Work If You Can Get It starring Kelli O'Hara, Matthew Broderick, and Judy Kaye. Among her numerous television credits, she was part of the original incarnation of The Today Show and is perhaps most widely known as Bev, the titular character's zany mother on Roseanne. She recently dazzled audiences in Tony Kushner's A Bright Room Called Day at The Public Theater. Encompass and the Board of Trustees will honor Ms. Parsons with The Lifetime Achievement Award.

Maury Yeston, Composer and Lyricist on Broadway: Titanic (Tony Award, Best Score); Nine (Tony Award, Best Score; two Drama Desk Awards, Best Music, Best Lyrics); Grand Hotel (Tony and Drama Desk nominations); The Royal Family (incidental music). Off Broadway: Death Takes a Holiday (11 Drama Desk nominations), Cloud 9 (songs and incidental music), In the Beginning. National and International: Phantom, Concert---An American Cantata: 2000 Voices (Kennedy Center Commission, National Symphony Orchestra); December Songs (song cycle, Carnegie Hall centennial year commission); Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (premiere, Yo-Yo Ma). Film: Nine, (Academy Award nomination), Golden Globe nomination, Best Song); Ballet: Tom Sawyer: A Ballet in Three Acts, Kansas Ballet, world premiere Kansas City. Maury Yeston served twenty years as mentor and head of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop for up-and-coming songwriting teams. Mr. Yeston will be awarded the Sheldon Harnick Award for Creative Excellence.