HARMONY, the New Musical by Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman, Comes to New York in 2022

Harmony, the new musical by Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman, is coming to New York City in March 2022! The production will be helmed by Tony Award-winning director Warren Carlyle at the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (NYTF).

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.

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 inquires.

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 19, 2022.

Directing and choreographing Harmony will be Tony Award winner and Emmy-nominated Director 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 and for a Drama Desk award for Best Director and Choreography for the Broadway revival of Finian's Rainbow. 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. Upcoming: choreographing the 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, who most recently won a Tony for Best Revival of a Musical for Once on This Island and a Tony for Best Musical for Kinky Boots, and received Tony 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, and Neil Gooding Productions. This presentation is being produced in association with Wilfried Rimensberger of Stiletto Entertainment.