The Ogunquit Playhouse is please to announce a star-studded cast for its stunning production of the magnificently romantic Lerner and Loewe musical, My Fair Lady, opening on August 13th and running through September 6th. This beloved musical tells the tale of a stringent linguist, Professor Henry Higgins, who bets a colleague he can turn flower vendor Eliza Doolittle from a guttersnipe into a duchess.
Starring in the lead role of Eliza Doolitte is
Gail Bennett who has just completed a year and a half run in the Las Vegas production of
Mel Brooks' The Producers. Her regional theatre credits include Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun, Jellylorum in Cats, and Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Tony Award winning actor
Jefferson Mays is set to play Henry Higgins. Jefferson recently appeared on Broadway as "Henry Higgins" in Roundabout Theatre's Pygmalion and in the Tony-winning revival of Journey's End. He won the Tony Award in 2004 for I Am My Own Wife and has been seen in numerous productions New York and across the country. In addition to the Tony award for Best Actor in a Play, he has also garnered Drama Desk, Outer Critics' Circle, Obie (1994 & 2004),
Lucille Lortel, Jefferson,
Helen Hayes, Elliott Norton, Theatre World, Drama League, Dramalogue and Australia's Sir
Robert Helpmann Awards.
Conrad John Schuck, who will take the stage as Pickering, began his 40 some year career at The
Cleveland Play House. Since then he has acted in over 200 productions across the United States and Europe. Plucked from San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre in 1969 by
Robert Altman to play "Painless," in the original "M*A*S*H" motion picture, John began what has been a non-stop film and television career. His most recent movies are
Woody Allen's, "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion!" and the award winning "String of the Kite." On Broadway, he played Daddy Warbucks in Annie and then reprised the role in the recent Broadway revival. More recently he starred as Buffalo Bill in Annie Get Your Gun with the highly acclaimed
Reba McEntire, Captain Jack in Juno, for Encores at New York
City Center and Captain Brackett in
South Pacific at
Carnegie Hall. Television fans will remember John as Enright in "McMillan and Wife," starring
Rock Hudson.
Playing Mrs. Higgins is Nancy Dusseault, who among her many theatre credits, has appeared on Broadway as Maria in The Sound of Music and has been nominated twice for a Tony Award - as Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for Do Re Mi and again for Best Actress in a Musical for Bajour. On television, she was a regular on "The New
Dick Van Dyke Show," played
Ted Knight's wife in the role of Muriel Rush on "Too Close for Comfort" and was the first actress to portray the mother of character Jamie Stemple Buchman, in season one of the long-running TV series, "Mad About You." Nancy was also the first anchor of "Good Morning America" working with
David Hartman when it began in 1975.
Timothy Jerome will play Alfred P. Doolittle. His Broadway credits include The Phantom of the Opera, Me and My Girl, for which he was nominated for both a Tony and Drama Desk Award, Tarzan, Beauty and the Beast, La Boheme, Grand Hotel, Cats, The Magic Show, Lost in Yonkers, The Rothschilds and Man of La Mancha. His film career includes, "Thirteen Days," "Cradle will Rock," "Husbands and Wives," "Everyone Says I Love You" and "Billy Bathgate." Timothy is the Founding President of the National Music Theater Network and the New York Musical Theatre Festival.
Will Ray makes his Ogunquit Playhouse debut as Freddy. He was recently seen Off Broadway as John Truit in the Irish Repertory's production of
Meet Me in St. Louis. His regional credits include; Enjolras in
Les Miserables and Lt. Cable in
South Pacific, Malcom in Full Monty, Smokey Joe's Cafe and Jamie Lockhart in The Robber Bridegroom. Will has performed with such orchestras as the Cincinnati Pops and the Tokyo Philharmonic. He is a graduate of University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music.
Directing
My Fair Lady for the Ogunquit Playhouse is
Shaun Kerrison, who has staged the show all over the world, working with
Trevor Nunn. Among
Shaun Kerrison's many achievements are positions as Associate Director of Les Misérables at the Palace Theatre in London and Tour Director for the national company, Associate Director of
My Fair Lady at both
The National Theatre and Theatre Royal Drury Lane, the Associate Director on J M Barrie's original play of Peter Pan and The Pirates of Penzance, both at The Savoy Theatre, London, the resident director of
The Lion King (Lyceum) and last year staged Les Misérables in concert for a special gala performance at Windsor Castle to celebrate 100 years of the Entente Cordiale, for Her Majesty the Queen and President Chirac.
My Fair Lady runs from August 13th to September 6th and is funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Contact the box office at 207-646-5511 to order your tickets today or purchase online at
www.ogunquitplayhouse.org.
