New York City Center Encores! 2023 Season Will Include THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA with Ruthie Ann Miles, OLIVER! and DEAR WORLD with Donna Murphy

Full programming for New York City Center's 2022 - 2023 Season was announced. Following last season's successful reopening for live in‐person performances, the 2022 - 2023 Season includes marquee series Fall for Dance Festival and Encores!, and the return of new annual dance series: Artists at the Center and City Center Dance Festival. Manhattan's first performing arts center, New York City Center has presented the best in music, theater, and dance to generations of New Yorkers for nearly 80 years.

Fall 2022

The 2022 - 2023 Season opens with the 19th Fall for Dance Festival, September 21 - October 2. For the first time in three years, the Festival returns to presenting an international array of dance artists and companies in five unique programs, each featuring three different performances. Highlights include a City Center co‐commission with Vail Dance Festival of Pam Tanowitz's world premiere work featuring Melissa

Toogood and Herman Cornejo; the live premiere of Christopher Wheeldon's 2020 digital Fall for Dance commission The Two of Us featuring Sara Mearns and Robbie Fairchild; and performances by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, soloists from Bavarian State Ballet (Germany), Compagnie Hervé Koubi (France), Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Dutch National Ballet (Netherlands), Gibney Dance, Kyiv City Ballet (Ukraine), Nrityagram Dance Ensemble (India), and San Francisco Ballet. This year all Fall for Dance tickets will be $20, in keeping with City Center's mission of accessibility. Ticket prices for Fall for Dance are increasing for the first time in 10 years, which will offset increased fees provided to Festival artists. Tickets go on sale on Sunday, August 28 at 11am. Full programming details will be announced in August.

Following last fall's triumphant TWYLA NOW program, one of the world's most versatile choreographers Twyla Tharp returns to City Center October 19 - 23 with two of her most beloved works: In the Upper Room and Nine Sinatra Songs. Set to Philip Glass's propulsive score with striking costumes by Norma Kamali, In the Upper Room (1986) is known for its full‐throttle speed and broad spectrum of movement drawing from ballet, tap dance, boxing, and yoga. In contrast, Nine Sinatra Songs (1982) combines the charms of Tharp's suave, jazzy style with some of Frank Sinatra's most beloved pop standards recounting the varying phases of love through time.

As previously announced, the Annual Gala Presentation Parade, directed by Michael Arden and starring Micaela Diamond and Ben Platt, opens November 1 with a benefit performance followed by a gala dinner at the Ziegfeld Ballroom. Performances of Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry's Tony Award‐winning musical run through November 6. Funds raised by all seven performances allow City Center to continue to provide access to the performing arts by subsidizing education programs and affordable tickets throughout the year. Tickets starting at $35 go on sale to the general public at noon today.

Fom November 15 - 27, a jazz‐infused retelling of the classic holiday story Sugar Hill: The Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker, directed by Joshua Bergasse, celebrates the music and magic of the jazz heartbeat of Harlem in Sugar Hill. A tribute to the joy of collaboration, the beauty of diversity, and the power of individuality. Produced by David Garfinkle/HELLO Entertainment, Willette Klausner, Dale Mott, Rob Quadrino, Brass Bull Productions, Billy Strayhorn Songs, Inc. and Schirmer Theatrical. Executive Producers A. Alyce Claerbaut, Robert Thompson, and Randall Buck.

The dancers of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will enliven the City Center stage for four weeks November 30 - December 24 with new works by Kyle Abraham and Resident Choreographer Jamar Roberts; Company premieres of Paul Taylor's romantic DUET and Twyla Tharp's carefree Roy's Joys; and a new production of Alvin Ailey's stirring Survivors, an impassioned tribute to the profound courage and terrible anguish of Nelson and Winnie Mandela. The season will also include returning favorites by Artistic Director Robert Battle, Aszure Barton, Rennie Harris, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, plus classics by Mr. Ailey including the beloved Revelations that "becomes brighter, its brilliance more memorable, every year" (The New York Times).

Winter / Spring 2023

The beloved musical theater series Encores! eagerly welcomes Mary‐Mitchell Campbell for her first season as the new Music Director. A consummate interpreter of the work of Stephen Sondheim and a host of other Broadway greats, Campbell is widely respected for her work as a conductor, music director, orchestrator, composer, and arranger on productions like Road Show, The Prom, Some Like it Hot, and the 2006 revival of Company. She now takes up the baton leading the acclaimed Encores! Orchestra. Campbell joins Artistic Director Lear deBessonet and Producing Creative Director Clint Ramos for an exciting 2023 Encores! season of musical theater revivals that continue to expand the Encores! family of artists and audiences.

Starting February 1 - 5, director Chay Yew explores Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel's Tony Award‐winning musical The Light in the Piazza. Tony winner Ruthie Ann Miles returns to the New York stage as Margaret Johnson, a 1950s American mother touring Florence with her daughter and struggling to embrace undreamt‐of opportunities in the shadow of a tragic accident. Buoyed by Guettel's lush score, Yew's production transmutes the musical's drama of encounter across barriers of language, culture, and ability into something as essential as it is revelatory.

Next is a hidden gem of the Broadway canon: Jerry Herman's 1969 musical Dear World, March 15 - 19. In this madcap musical fable, a motley band of outcasts must rally together to save their picturesque Chaillot neighborhood in Paris from a greedy cabal of oil‐hungry bankers. Tony winner Donna Murphy takes on the musical's giddy, garish heroine, Countess Aurelia, performing some of Herman's sweetest and most sumptuous songs, including "I Don't Want to Know," "Kiss Her Now," and "Each Tomorrow Morning." This delightful romp, directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes, blends Herman's trademark optimism with a dash of social critique and a hint of ecological urgency: a perfect blend for our times.

Closing out the Encores! season is a special two‐week run of Lionel Bart's Oliver! (May 3 - 14), marking the musical's first major New York production in nearly 40 years. Directed by Encores! Artistic Director Lear deBessonet, this landmark revival revels in the brassy, boisterous sound of such classics as "I'd Do Anything," "Oom Pah Pah!," and "Consider Yourself." The story of a child who dares to trust in others, search for love, and ask for more in London's seedy underworld, the coming‐of‐age tale promises to inspire a new generation of musical theater lovers.

Sara Baras and her company of dancers and musicians return to the annual Flamenco Festival March 23 - 26 with Alma, a love letter to flamenco's origins which blends traditional flamenco elements with bolero rhythms. Winner of the 2020 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance, Baras (2019 Flamenco Festival) has built an international career as a dancer, director, and choreographer known for infusing classic forms of flamenco (most famously the farruca) with a powerfully modern sensibility.

For the first time in 15 years, The National Ballet of Canada takes the City Center stage March 30 - April 1 for unforgettable performances featuring live music by The National Ballet of Canada Orchestra. The evening includes Kenneth MacMillan's 1966 Concerto, a classically inventive interpretation of Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2, followed by David Dawson's Anima Animus (2018), a ferocious interplay between light and dark. Anchoring the program is Angels' Atlas by Canadian icon Crystal Pite, an astonishing piece for 36 performers that became an unwitting requiem for life as we knew it when it premiered to rapturous reviews in February 2020.

One the world's greatest tap dance talents and a longtime City Center collaborator, Ayodele Casel is the second featured artist‐curator in the new Artists at the Center series. Casel expands her 2021 Fall for Dance commission Where We Dwell for Ayodele Casel | Artists at the Center (April 13 - 15) to further explore personal, cultural, and musical approaches to the quintessentially American tap form. Each of the series' three unique programs include world‐premiere City Center commissions alongside Where We Dwell, and features tap legends and frequent Casel collaborators including: Jared Alexander, Alexandra Bradley, Amanda Castro, Maurice Chestnut, Kurt Csolak, Naomi Funaki, Quynn Johnson, Ted Louis Levy, John Manzari, Anthony Morigerato, Caleb Teicher, Dre Torres, and vocalist Crystal Monee Hall.

From Apr 19 - 23, Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) returns to New York City Center with two dynamic programs celebrating the 10 years following the Company's triumphant return to the stage. The DTH dancers shine in New York premieres by William Forsythe and Tiffany Rea‐ Fisher, as well as the return of George Balanchine's joyous Allegro Brillante, and several audience favorites including works by Resident Choreographer Robert Garland. Presented in cooperation with New York City Center.

Ballet Hispánico, the nation's largest Latinx cultural organization and one of America's Cultural Treasures, returns to City Center after its critically acclaimed run of Doña Perón. From June 1 - 3, the Company presents a mixed program curated by Artistic Director & CEO Eduardo Vilaro, including the world premiere by celebrated Latina choreographer Michelle Manzanales and such popular repertory pieces as Club Havana and 18+1, among others. Presented in cooperation with New York City Center.

The City Center Dance Festival returns for its second year, this time in the form of a summer jam. For three exhilarating nights From the Street | City Center Dance Festival celebrates the propulsive diversity of rhythms and forms found in contemporary hip‐hop. Creative Advisors Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie (artistic director of Ephrat Asherie Dance) and Adesola Osakalumi (co‐creator of Jam on the Groove) assemble a high‐octane program featuring a host of local, national, and international creators. Performance dates and programming details to be announced.

The Studio 5 series of conversations and performances is an opportunity to hear from today's great dance artists in the intimate setting of City Center's historic studios. Events throughout the season will be presented in person and on demand featuring artists from the mainstage programs and beyond-Fall for Dance Festival, Ayodele Casel | Artists at the Center, From the Street | City Center Dance Festival, George Balanchine's The Nutcracker® in partnership with New York City Ballet, and more.

Manhattan Theater Club

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, Manhattan Theatre Club(MTC) has made enormous contributions to American theater, producing bold new American plays and musicals at its Off‐Broadway home at New York City Center Stages I and II. From acclaimed writer Jeff Augustin (The New Englanders at MTC, "The Morning Show") comes Where the Mountain Meets the Sea, a timely story of a son's quest to connect with his father, directed by Princess Grace Award winner Joshua Kahan Brody. Reuniting with director May Adrales, Qui Nguyen (Vietgone) returns to MTC with the second play of his autobiographical trilogy. Told from the mother's perspective, Poor Yella Rednecks is the story of a young family's attempt to put down roots in Arkansas, a place as different from Vietnam as it gets. Tony and Pulitzer Prize‐winning author David Auburn (Proof, The Columnist) returns to MTC with Summer, 1976, a deeply moving, tenderly insightful new play about friendship, memory, and the small moments that can change the course of our lives forever. Directing is Tony winner Daniel Sullivan (Proof, Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes).

Tickets and General Information

Tickets start at $35 and go on sale at noon on September 6 to members and September 13 to the general public for Artists at the Center│ Ayodele Casel, Flamenco Festival, The National Ballet of Canada, From the Street │ City Center Dance Festival, Studio 5, and Twyla Tharp. Fall for Dance Festival tickets go on sale Sunday, August 28 at 11am, with all tickets $20. Tickets for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater go on sale October 11 to the general public.

Current subscribers may renew their Encores! subscriptions now through July 15. New Encores! subscriptions for members are available starting August 2 and for the general public starting August 9. Single tickets go on sale to members September 29 and to the general public on October 6.

Tickets can be purchased online at NYCityCenter.org, by calling 212.581.1212, or in person at the City Center Box Office. New York City Center is located at 131 W 55th St between Sixth and Seventh avenues.

NEW YORK CITY CENTER (Arlene Shuler, President & CEO) has played a defining role in the cultural life of the city since 1943. Manhattan's first performing arts center, City Center was founded by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia with the mission of making the best in the performing arts accessible to all audiences. This commitment continues today through celebrated dance and musical theater series like the Fall for Dance Festival and the Tony‐honored Encores! series, as well as a continued dedication to a culture built on the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The distinctive neo‐Moorish theater welcomes more than 300,000 annual visitors to experience internationally acclaimed artists on the same stage where legends like George Balanchine, Leonard Bernstein, Barbara Cook, José Ferrer, Martha Graham, and Paul Robeson made their mark. Home to a roster of renowned national and international companies including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (City Center's Principal Dance Company) and Manhattan Theatre Club, City Center's dynamic programming, art exhibitions, and studio events are complemented by education and community engagement programs that bring the performing arts to thousands of New York City students, teachers, and families every year, from all five boroughs. NYCityCenter.org