Reprise! Broadway's Best will treat audiences to shows with music by the Gershwins, Stephen Sondheim and Richard Rodgers during its 10th anniversary season of staged concerts at UCLA's Freud Playhouse in L.A.
My One and Only will be presented from September 5th through 17th (with an opening night set for September 6th),
Sunday in the Park with George from January 30th through February 11th, 2007 (opening January 31st) and
No Strings from May 8th through 20th (opening May 9th).
My One and Only, which features music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, a book by Peter Stone and Timothy S. Mayer, will be directed and choreographed by
Dan Mojica (
On The Town, Pippin and the award-winning
Anything Goes).
"
My One and Only takes the heart-stopping songs 'S Wonderful,' 'Funny Face' and of course 'My One and Only; from George and Ira Gershwin's
Funny Face, along with great numbers from several other Gershwin shows, and joins them with a new book which is frothy and fun....This musical gets buoyancy from its spoofy tone," state press notes. The original hit 1983 production starred
Tommy Tune (who directed and choreographed with
Thommie Walsh) and Twiggy.
Stephen Sondheim's Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning
Sunday in the Park with George "is a moving portrait of an artist struggling to reconcile the perfect, imaginary world of his painting with the imperfect, messy world of real life. Act I revolves around Georges Seurat (1859-1891) and the creation of his signature painting 'Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte.' Seurat's inability to commit to anyone or anything but his work is echoed in Act II as George's great-grandson confronts his own artistic demons and failure to connect. Past and present merge as both Georges discover basic truths about art, human connection and the constant struggle to "break through to something new."
The musical, which features a book by
James Lapine, opened on Broadway in 1984 with
Bernadette Peters and
Mandy Patinkin.
The 2006 – 2007 season will close with the Tony Award-winning
No Strings, with music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers (his first and only show to boast that credit), book by Samuel Taylor and direction by Kay Cole (
City of Angels, Judy's Scary Little Christmas).
"In
No Strings, a successful high-fashion model meets and falls in love with a writer in Paris. While this Pulitzer prize-winner has been trying to recover from a prolonged case of writer's block, he's assumed the dubious role of charming intellectual-in-residence at some of the Continent's more luxurious watering holes. Their romance develops into the first deeply-felt, honest relationship
either has ever known. The model, however, ruefully comes to realize
that the life-style demanded by her career is stifling the writer, and
if he's ever to fulfill the promise of his earlier work, he must take
responsibility for himself, go home, and write. Reluctantly, but with
no strings, they part, each having discovered anew their capacity to
love."
No Strings, opening in 1962, starred Tony Award-winner Diahann Carroll and Richard Kiley.
Reprise! Broadway's Best, now in ts ninth season at UCLA's Freud Playhouse was founded by Marcia Seligson, who served as Producing Artistic Director from 1995 – 2005, and is honored as its Founding Artistic Director. In 2005, Jim Gardia became Producing Director. Reprise! has presented twenty-seven of America's best and most classic musicals of this century. The late Peter Matz, one of Broadway, television and popular music's most important conductor-arrangers, served as the musical director from the founding of Reprise! until his death in August, 2002. Gerald Sternbach has succeeded him.
Ticket prices for the three show season are $195, $177 and $165. Single Ticket Prices are $75, $70 and $60. They are available by calling the UCLA Central Ticket Office at 310-825-2101. For more information, visit www.reprise.org.
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