Harry Connick, Jr. Returns To Broadway In Gershwin Musical

Grammy Award and Emmy Award winner and two-time Tony Award nominee Harry Connick, Jr. will return to Broadway in Spring 2009 in Nice Work If You Can Get It, a new musical comedy with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, and book by Joe DiPietro ( I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, All Shook Up). Two-time Tony Award winner Kathleen Marshall (The Pajama Game, Wonderful Town) will direct and choreograph.  Rob Fisher will serve as Music Arranger/Supervisor.

Harry Connick, Jr. stars as a Long Island playboy in this new musical comedy filled with bootleggers, golddiggers, and some of the greatest songs from the legendary Gershwin hit list.

Nice Work If You Can Get It will reunite Connick, Jr. with Kathleen Marshall, who last collaborated on the 2006 Tony Award-winning production of The Pajama Game.

Nice Work If You Can Get It will feature scenic design by Tony Award nominee Derek McLane (The Pajama Game), costume design by two-time Tony Award winner Martin Pakledinaz (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Kiss Me Kate), lighting design by Tony Award winner Kenneth Posner (The Coast of Utopia, Wicked) and sound design by ACME Sound Partners. Additional casting will be announced shortly.

Nice Work If You Can Get It is being produced by Scott Landis, Broadway Across America, Ira Pittleman, Tom Hulce, Roy Furman, Maberry Theatricals, Ann Marie Wilkins, and Emanuel Azenberg.

Harry Connick, Jr. Following a sold-out concert series at Broadway's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in 1990 and a Tony nomination for his music and lyrics in Thou Shalt Not, Harry Connick, Jr. triumphantly returned to Broadway in 2006 in The Pajama Game, and received a Tony Award nomination for his theatrical stage debut. Raised in New Orleans, Connick first performed publicly at age five, appeared on his first jazz recording at age ten and released his self-titled major-label debut on Columbia Records at 19. Film credits include P.S. I Love You, Bug, Memphis Belle, Little Man Tate, Copycat, Independence Day, Hope Floats, My Dog Skip and the upcoming Chilled in Miami opposite Renee Zellweger. Connick has contributed music to several films including When Harry Met Sally (leading to his first multiplatinum album), The Godfather III and Sleepless in Seattle. Television credits include "When My Heart Finds Christmas" (CBS) and "Harry for the Holidays" (NBC); two Great Performances (PBS) specials: "Swingin' Out Live" and "Harry Connick, Jr.: Only You in Concert" (2004 Emmy Award); "The Happy Elf" (NBC); "South Pacific" (ABC); and "Will & Grace" (NBC, recurring role of Dr. Leo Markus). Connick has more than 25 million in album sales (When Harry Met Sally, We are In Love, To See You, Come By Me, Only You), three Grammy Awards and an Emmy Award.

Kathleen Marshall (Director/Choreographer) Broadway: directed and choreographed The Pajama Game (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Awards for choreography; Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics nominations for direction; Tony for Best Revival of a Musical), Wonderful Town (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics and Astaire Awards for choreography; Tony, Drama Desk and Outer
Critics nominations for direction) and Grease; choreographed Little Shop of Horrors; Follies (Roundabout; Outer Critics nomination); Seussical; Kiss Me, Kate (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics and Astaire nominations); Ring Round the Moon (Lincoln Center Theater); 1776 (Roundabout); and Swinging on a Star (Drama Desk nomination). Off-Broadway: directed and choreographed Two Gentlemen of Verona (New York Shakespeare Festival) and Saturday Night (Second Stage); choreographed Violet (Playwrights Horizon) and As Thousands Cheer (Drama Dept). City Center Encores!: directed and choreographed Applause; 70, Girls, 70; House of Flowers; Carnival; Hair; Wonderful Town; and Babes in Arms. Artistic director for four seasons. West End: choreographed Kiss Me, Kate (Olivier nomination). For ABC/Disney: directed and choreographed "Once Upon a Mattress" starring Carol Burnett and Tracey Ullman and choreographed Meredith Willson's "The Music Man" (Emmy nomination). She is on the Executive Board of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and is an associate artist of the Roundabout Theatre Company.

Joe DiPietro (Book) Broadway: All Shook Up. Off-Broadway: I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change and The Thing About Men (both with composer Jimmy Roberts), Over the River and Through the Woods. Regional: Memphis (North Shore Music Theatre, TheatreWorks), O. Henry's Lovers (Goodspeed Musicals), The Kiss at City Hall (Pasadena Playhouse), The Art of Murder (Edgar Award, Best Mystery Play, 2000). He has also written new books to Rodgers & Hammerstein's Allegro (Signature Theatre) and Rodgers & Hart's Babes in Arms (Goodspeed Musicals).

George Gershwin (Music) was born on September 26, 1898. In 1919, theatregoers heard his first full Broadway score (La, La Lucille) and Al Jolson popularized "Swanee" with lyrics by Irving Caesar, his first big song hit. In 1924, George composed Rhapsody in Blue, the same year he formed the songwriting partnership with his older brother, Ira. By the mid-thirties, as America's premier composer, he had written the Concerto in F, An American in Paris and the Second Rhapsody. 1935 saw the debut of his masterpiece, Porgy and Bess, written with DuBose Heyward and Ira. In his last year George wrote the scores to three films: Shall We Dance, A Damsel in Distress and Goldwyn Follies. He died tragically of a brain tumor on July 11, 1937 at the age of 38.

Ira Gershwin (Lyrics) (1896-1983), the first songwriter to be awarded the
Pulitzer Prize (Of Thee I Sing), wrote lyrics for the scores to more than 40
stage and screen musicals. He received three Academy Award nominations and
has been interpreted by the greats of yesterday and today. Although he wrote
with many illustrious colleagues, the collaboration with his brother George
(climaxing in the opera Porgy and Bess), is fixed in America's cultural
consciousness as representing the sounds and style of the Jazz Age.

Photo Credit Walter McBride/Retna