Marshall, Griffin & Doyle Set as ENCORES! 2010-11 Directors

Jack Viertel, Artistic Director of New York City Center's Encores! series, today announced directors for the 2010-11 Encores! season: Kathleen Marshall will direct and choreograph the season opener, Bells Are Ringing, with music by Jule Styne and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, opening on November 18, 2010. Gary Griffin will direct Lost in the Stars, with music by Kurt Weill and book and lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, opening on February 3, 2011. John Doyle will direct Where's Charley, based on BranDon Thomas' Charley's Aunt, with book by George Abbott and music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, opening on March 17, 2011. Music Director Rob Berman will conduct all three musicals.

In Bells Are Ringing, a lonely young woman who runs an answering service falls for a client she has met only by voice, and classic 1950s mayhem ensues. The score, by turns brassy, sweet and romantic, includes "Just in Time," "The Party's Over," "I Met a Girl," "Long Before I Knew You" and a fistful of other great tunes from one of Broadway's greatest tunesmiths. The original production opened at the Shubert Theater on November 29, 1956, and played a total of 924 performances. Directed by Jerome Robbins and choreographed by Robbins and Bob Fosse, it won Tony awards for its stars Judy Holliday and Sydney Chaplin. Bells Are Ringing will run November 18-21, 2010.

Lost in the Stars, based on Alan Paton's novel Cry, the Beloved Country, with music by Kurt Weill and book and lyrics by Maxwell Anderson. This story of life in South Africa under apartheid stirred generations to action and was the basis for a beautiful, brooding, dramatic musical that produced not only the immortal title song, but an entire score that pulses with the life of a people. It opened at the Music Box Theater on October 30, 1949, and played 273 performances. Lost in the Stars will run February 3-6, 2011.

Where's Charley?, Frank Loesser's first Broadway score, immediately demonstrated the master's easy command of wit and romance, sophistication and high jinks. George Abbott's adaptation of BranDon Thomas' classic college farce Charley's Aunt delivered "Once in Love With Amy," "My Darling, My Darling" and "The New Ashmolean Marching Society" to the hit parade, and launched Loesser into the songwriting stratosphere. The musical opened at the St. James Theater on October 11, 1948, and played 792 performances. It was directed by George Abbott, choreographed by George Balanchine and starred Ray Bolger, who won a Tony Award for his performance. Where's Charley? will run March 17-20, 2011.

The 2010-11 Encores! season is made possible, in part, by the Stephanie and Fred Shuman Fund for Encores!

City Center gratefully acknowledges lead support from American Express, Stacey and Eric Mindich and the Newman's Own Foundation.

Bells Are Ringing has been generously supported by The Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust and Roz and Jerry Meyer.

Kathleen Marshall (Director and Choreographer, Bells are Ringing)) returns to Encores!, where she has directed and choreographed Applause, Carnival, Hair and Babes In Arms, among others, and served as artistic director for four seasons. Her Broadway credits include The Pajama Game; Wonderful Town; Grease; Boeing, Boeing; Little Shop of Horrors; Follies; Seussical; Kiss Me, Kate; Ring Round the Moon; 1776 and Swinging on a Star. For ABC/Disney, she directed and choreographed "Once Upon a Mattress" and choreographed "The Music Man" (Emmy nomination). She has received two Tony awards, two Drama Desk awards and two Outer Critics Circle awards.

Gary Griffin (Director, Lost In The Stars) directed the Encores! productions of The New Moon, Pardon My English, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, The Apple Tree and Music In The Air. He directed The Color Purple and The Apple Tree on Broadway, Pacific Overtures in London (Olivier Award, Outstanding Musical Production, Olivier Nomination, Best Director), and West Side Story and Evita at Stratford Festival of Canada. Mr. Griffin is associate artistic director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater, where he directed Private Lives, Amadeus and A Little Night Music. Regionally, he has directed at The ALLIANCE THEATRE, The Old Globe, McCarter Theatre, Signature Theatre and Kansas City Repertory Theatre.

John Doyle (Director, Where's Charley?) most recently direcTed Wings at Second Stage Theatre. His Broadway credits include Sweeney Todd (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards, Best Director of a Musical); Company (Tony Award, Best Revival) and A Catered Affair, and his off-Broadway credits include Road Show (The Public). In London, he has directed Gondoliers, Sweeney Todd and Mack and Mabel. Mr. Doyle's opera credits include Peter Grimes, (Metropolitan Opera), Lucia di Lammermoor (Marinsky Theatre/ Scottish Opera), The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (LA Opera), and Madama Butterfly (Grange Park Opera).

Rob Berman (Music Director) will conduct all three Encores! musicals this season. He is in his fourth season as music director of the series, where he has conducted Anyone Can Whistle, Fanny, Finian's Rainbow, Music in the Air, Damn Yankees, Applause and Stairway to Paradise, as well as last season's gala concert celebrating Stephen Sondheim. Broadway conducting credits include Finian's Rainbow, Irving Berlin's White Christmas, The Pajama Game, The Apple Tree and Wonderful Town, among others. Mr. Berman is a two-time Emmy nominee for his work as music director of the Kennedy Center Honors, and he won a Helen Hayes Award for Best Musical Direction for his work on The Kennedy Center's production of Sunday in the Park With George. Recently, he was music director for A Broadway Celebration: In Performance at the White House.

New York City Center Encores! (Jack Viertel, Artistic Director; Rob Berman, Music Director) has, since 1994, celebrated the rarely heard works of America's most important composers and lyricists. Conceived as
concert versions, each Encores! season gives three scores the chance to be heard as originally intended by their creators. Over the years, Encores! has presented the works of the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart,
Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, Bock and Harnick, Stephen Sondheim, Burt Bacharach, Kander and Ebb, Comden and Green, and many others. The program is the recipient of a special 2000 Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre, as well as an Outer Critics Circle Award, Lucille Lortel Award and Jujamcyn Theaters Award.

NEW YORK City Center (Arlene Shuler, President & CEO) has played a defining role in the cultural life of the city for more than 60 years. It was Manhattan's first performing arts center, dedicated by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1943 with a mission to make the best in music, theater and dance accessible to all audiences. Today, City Center is home to many distinguished companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Paul Taylor Dance Company and Manhattan Theatre Club; a roster of renowned national and international visiting artists; and its own critically acclaimed and popular programs. The Tony-honored Encores! musical theater series, now in its 18th season, has been hailed as "one of the very best reasons to be alive in New York." Dance has been integral to the theater's mission from the start, and dance programs, including the annual Fall for Dance Festival and a partnership with London's Sadler's Wells Theatre, remain central to City Center's identity. City Center is dedicated to providing educational opportunities to New York City students and teachers with programs such as Encores! In Schools and the Young People's Dance Series. Special workshops cater to families, seniors and other groups, while events such as the Fall for Dance DanceTalk series offer learning opportunities to the general public.

Tickets for Encores! 2010-11 are available at the New York City Center Box Office (West 55th Street between 6th and 7th avenues), through CityTix® at 212-581-1212, or online at www.NYCityCenter.org. Tickets for the Orchestra, Grand Tier and Mid-Mezzanine are $100; tickets for the Rear Mezzanine and Front Gallery are $50; tickets for the Rear Gallery are $25.