Musicals in Mufti Summer Series '07 Announced

The York Theatre Company has announced its Summer 2007 Musicals in Mufti Series -- the York's acclaimed series of musical theatre gems in staged concert performances. The dates and shows are as follows:

It's a Bird…It's a Plane...It's Superman, June 15-17, 2007

I and Albert, June 29-July 1, 2007

Bajour, July 13-15, 2007

The Day Before Spring, July 27-29, 2007

Shows by three sets of musical theatre writers will be featured: Charles Strouse & Lee Adams, Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Loewe and Ernest Kinoy & Walter Marks. It's a Bird…It's… a Plane…It's Superman will be directed by Stuart Ross (Forever Plaid, Radiant Baby). I and Albert will be directed by Michael Montel (Take Me Along), Bajour by Kent Gash (Associate Artistic Director, ALLIANCE THEATRE Company, Beggars' Holiday), and The Day Before Spring by David Glenn Armstrong ((Mis)Understanding Mammy: The Hattie McDaniel Story, Plain and Fancy).

It's a Bird…It's a Plane…It's Superman (June 15-17) has music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams, whose collaborations include Bye Bye Birdie and Applause, and a book by David Newman and Robert Benton (who would later collaborate on the scripts for the Christopher Reeve Superman movies). The show is "a musical comedy that was conceived after the success of the TV series. The musical's plot has the Man of Steel facing a mad scientist and an evil newsman while fighting for both the hand of Lois Lane and with his own personal self-esteem demons. It's a Bird…It's a Plane..It's Superman opened on Broadway at The Alvin Theatre in March, 1966 and ran for 129 performances. Directed by Harold Prince, the show starred Jack Cassidy, Bob Holiday, Patricia Marand and Linda Lavin," state press notes.

I and Albert (June 29-July 1) has music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams and book by Jay Presson Allen (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Tru). The York Mufti presentation will be I and Albert'sNew York premiere. It originally debuted at London's Piccadilly Theatre in 1972 under the direction of John Schlesinger and ran for 120 performances. A cast album was recorded in 1981. The show "tells the love story between Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert. In 1839, Victoria fell in love with Albert who was her first cousin from the small German principality of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Married in 1840, royal couple's family life drastically differed with the images of previous British monarchs."

Bajour (July 13-15) has a book by Ernest Kinoy and music and lyrics by Walter Marks. They also wrote the musical, Golden Rainbow. Bajour is "a musical comedy based on the Joseph Mitchell short stores published in The New Yorker. Bajour is to gypsies the highest of all the arts, and refers to a con game involving separating lonely older women from their savings. The show is about an anthropology student at NYU whose doctoral study of nomadic gypsies brings her in contact with a tribal leader, who needs to raise a dowry to purchase a bride from Newark's Gypsy King for his son. Anxious to marry, this bride offers to stage a Bajour to help finance it but complications ensue when she targets the student's widowed mother. The Broadway production, directed by Lawrence Kasha and choreographed by Peter Gennaro, opened on November 23, 1964 at the Shubert Theatre, then transferred to the Lunt-Fontanne to complete its run of 232-performances. The cast included Nancy Dussault, Herschel Bernardi, Chita Rivera and Mae Questel, with Paul Sorvino, Michael Bennett, and Leland Palmer among the ensemble players. Tony Award nominations went to Dussault for Best Actress in a Musical and Gennaro for Best Choreography."

The Day Before Spring (July 27-29) has music by Frederick Loewe and book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. The show opened on Broadway at The National Theatre in 1945 where it ran for 167 performances. It was directed by Edward Padula, choreographed by Anthony Tudor and had a cast that included Lucille Benson, John Archer, Bert Freed and Irene Manning. The show "concerns a married woman who, at a college reunion, meets the man with whom she almost eloped ten years before. She becomes so touched by a novel he has written about her, she considers leaving her husband and reuniting with this former love of hers."

This is York's first summer Musicals in Mufti series, and the first time there will be four shows in the series (instead of the usual three). There will also be a week in between each Mufti performance weekend.

Mufti (pronounced MUFF-tee) means in street clothes; without the usual trappings, and each show is presented script-in-hand, with minimal staging. The Musical in Mufti Series has celebrated such writers as Richard Rodgers, George Abbott and Joseph Stein. York has presented over 60 of these concert revivals of musical theatre gems from the past.

For ticket information visit www.yorktheatre.org or call 212-935-5820. The York Theatre Box office is open Monday through Friday 10-6.