Graham Phillips and Talia Suskauer Will Lead SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE at Axelrod PAC

Axelrod PAC will open its new season with Sunday in the Park with George in March 2024. The cast will be led by Graham Phillips and Talia Suskauer. The production will be directed and choreographed by Eamon Foley.

Performances run March 8 – 24, 2024.

The first musical in the Axelrod’s Sondheim Centennial Project will be the Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece Sunday in the Park with George, written with James Lapine, regarded as one of the most acclaimed musicals of all time. The 1984 musical, which originally starred Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin, was inspired by the French pointillist painter Georges Seurat's painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The Broadway production was nominated for an astounding ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

The Sondheim Centennial Project, curated by Artistic Director Andrew DePrisco, will present one Sondheim musical each year until Stephen Sondheim’s 100th birthday anniversary in 2030, as well as concerts and showcases of living composers, to honor the master’s commitment to new voices and the future of musical theater.

Eamon Foley, who began his Broadway career in 13 The Musical, is one of Broadway’s up-and-coming director-choreographers, who frequently works alongside Tony Award-winning director Michael Arden. Foley’s strikingly new concept for Sunday revolves around the use of color, light and movement to invite the audience into George’s mind to better understand his creative process and his personal struggles. Celebrating “the art of making art,” we bring the colors on George’s pallet to life through dance and light, allowing the audience to live alongside the painter as he creates his masterpiece.

Cast Biographies

Graham Phillips is an American actor, writer, and director. Audiences will know Graham from his TV breakout role as Zach Florrick, the son in The Good Wife, opposite Julianna Margulies (as pictured). His extensive resume spans theater, television, and film. He was also featured as Nick St. Clair in Riverdale. Other notable credits include lead roles in Universal's The Pact,  Paramount's Staten Island Summer, Netflix's XOXO, and Goats, opposite David Duchovny. He has starred on Broadway in 13: The Musical and at the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera in The Little Prince. This past spring Graham debuted the title character in Pasadena Playhouse’s production of Sunday in the Park with George. 

Talia Suskauer recently completed her tenure as Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway. Other credits include: Be More Chill (Broadway and Off-Broadway), Wicked (National Tour - pictured). Regional: Gypsy (Louise), Little Women (Jo), The Secret Garden (Lily). Talia has performed at Carnegie Hall and recently made her solo debut at 54 Below.

Director/Choreographer Biography

Eamon Foley is the Artistic Director of Grind Arts Company, creating innovative musical theater productions on stage and on film. His career began at nine years old in the Broadway revival of Gypsy starring Bernadette Peters and continued in the original Broadway casts of Assassins, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, 13! The Musical and Everyday Rapture.  As choreographer, he has collaborated with this year's Tony Award winner for best director Michael Arden on productions such as Merrily We Roll Along, Annie at the Hollywood Bowl, Guys and Dolls at the Imperial Theater in Tokyo, and many others. He has also choreographed for Tony Award winner David Cromer on Next to Normal and the short film Home. He is currently choreographing Ragtime in Tokyo at the Nissay Theater. During the pandemic, he created The Sondheim Series, which explores Stephen Sondheim's music through dance and cinematography and was featured on BroadwayHD.