ONCE UPON A MATTRESS Benefit Concert Adds Danny Burstein and John Carian, 6/17

Transport Group, the Drama Desk, Outer Critics, and OBIE award-winning theatre company, has announced additional casting for the one-night-only, all-star concert of the acclaimed 1959 Broadway classic musical Once Upon A Mattress on Monday, June 17 at 7pmat the The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre in The Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street. Joining previously announced Jackie Hoffman as Princess Winnifred and John "Lypsinka" Epperson as Queen Aggravain are Tony nominee Danny Burstein (Follies) as King Sextimus, Tony nominee John Cariani (Fiddler on the Roof) as The Jester, Jill Paice (Curtains) as Lady Larken, Drama Desk nominee Lewis Cleale (The Book of Mormon) as Sir Harry, OBIE winner Jonathan Hammond (The Boys in the Band) as The Wizard, Stanley Bahorek (Queen of the Mist) as The Minstrel, and Drama Desk nominee David Rossmer (Peter and the Starcatcher) as Prince Dauntless.

The evening will feature a 10-person orchestra conducted by Matt Castle (2007 Company revival) as well as a 14-person ensemble featuring Lisa Asher, Zach Bencal, Clinton Clark, Vivienne Cleary, Michael De Souza, Tom Dolen, Frank Galgano, Jessica Hershberg, Danette Holden, Kristen Michelle, Gayla Morgan, Kurt Robbins, Doug Shapiro, and Maureen Taylor.

The concert will be directed by five-time Drama Desk nominee Jack Cummings III. Composer Mary Rodgers will attend the concert and take part in a post-show discussion with the audience. The benefit concert for Transport Group is co-produced by John Epperson.

In the fairy-tale world of Once Upon A Mattress, King Sextimus is unable to speak and his terror of a wife, Queen Aggravian, has taken over control of the kingdom. Most importantly, in an attempt to keep Prince Dauntless single, she has decreed that only the princess that can pass her test may marry her son. Further, no one else in the kingdom may marry until Prince Dauntless does. Lady Larken and Sir Harry are extremely disturbed by this fact since Lady Larken is now pregnant with Sir Harry's baby. Luckily, Sir Harry is able to find an amazing princess, Winnifred the Woebegone. Winnifred instantly catches the attention of Prince Dauntless, and in the end, is able to pass the Queen's supposedly impassable sensitivity test. When the Queen still tries to prevent Prince Dauntless from marrying, he tells her to 'shut up' which ends up breaking the curse on the King. Now able to speak, King Sextimus regains his rightful position as leader of the kingdom, and all live happily ever after.

Once Upon A Mattress is a musical comedy with music by Mary Rodgers, lyrics by Marshall Barer and book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller, and Marshall Barer. It opened off-Broadway in May, 1959, and then moved to Broadway, opening in November of 1959. The musical was written as an adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, The Princess and the Pea. The show made an instant star of Carol Burnett who originated the role of Princess Winnifred. Once Upon A Mattress received two Tony Award nominations, one for Burnett and the other for Best Musical. Three television adaptations followed the original production, two with Burnett reprising her role and the other as recent as 2005 starring Tracey Ullman as Winnifred and Burnett this time playing The Queen.

Artistic Director Jack Cummings III says, "Like millions of others over the last 54 years, Once Upon A Mattress is one of my favorite musicals-so, when John Epperson approached me with the inspired idea of Jackie Hoffman as Princess Winnifred and himself as The Queen Aggravain, I jumped at the chance. The score and book are both brilliantly hilarious and heartfelt. And we are absolutely honored and thrilled that Mary Rodgers will be joining us to talk with the audience afterwards and celebrate this show that has given endless joy to countless generations."

Jackie Hoffman

Broadway: The Addam's Family, Xanadu, Hairspray (Theatre World Award); Off-Broadway: Regrets Only, Pride & Joy, Book of Liz(Obie Award), Straightjacket, Incident at Cobbler's Knob, Only Woman Shoe. Regional: Second City (Jeff Award), The Sisters Rosenweig; Film: Extra Man, Dirty Shame, Garden State, Legally Blonde II, Kissing Jessica Stein, Mo' Money, Robots, Queer Duck; TV: "30 Rock," "One Live to Live," "Starved," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Strangers with Candy," "TV Funhouse," "Conan," "Soulman," "Cosby." Solo shows: MAC and Bistro Awards. CD: "Jackie Hoffman: Live at Joe's Pub."

Born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, a long way from the exciting worlds in which LYPSINKA travels: movies (Witch Hunt with Dennis Hopper, Darren Aronofsky's BLACK SWAN, Wigstock: The Movie, Angels In America, Kinsey, Another Gay Movie, Another Gay Sequel); television (HBO specials Sandra After Dark with Sandra Bernhard, and Dragtime; George Michael's video Too Funky, PBS's The United States Of Poetry and special features on the Mommie Dearest and Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? DVDs); fashion (appearing in the Paris, Tokyo and Los Angeles shows of haute couture designer Thierry Mugler, modeling for Valentino, Pauline Trigere, Barneys New York, and launching lines of cosmetics for Prescriptives, MAC, and Isabella Rossellini); advertisements (The Gap, LA Eyeworks, Naya Spring Water, Ilford Film); theater including I Could Go On Lip-Synching!, The Fabulous Lypsinka Show,Lypsinka! Now It Can Be Lip-Synched, Lypsinka! A Day In The Life (New York Theater Workshop, two Drama Desk nominations, including Most Unique Theatrical Experience; revived in 1993 Off Broadway at The Cherry Lane Theate), Lypsinka! As I Lay Lip-Synching, Lypsinka Must Be Destroyed!, Lypsinka IS Harriet Craig!, Lypsinka! The Boxed Set (2001 Drama Desk nomination, Washington, D.C. Helen Hayes Award win for Outstanding NonResident Production / Outstanding Lead Actor nomination, wins for Los Angeles Drama Critics' Circle Award, Best Sound Design and L.A. Weekly Theatre Award for Best Solo Performance); and special events (such as "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly," on Broadway with Bette Midler, Elaine Stritch and Patti LuPone, and London's Meltdown Festival curated by Morrissey). Formerly a rehearsal pianist at American Ballet Theater, Mr. Epperson's theatrical career was launched in the mid-1980s when he wrote the book, lyrics and music of Ballet Of The Dolls and Dial "M" For Model at La Mama ETC. 1999 brought Epperson's dramatic stage debut in Messages For Gary at The New York Fringe Festival. In 2004 Mr. Epperson appeared Off Broadway in The Roaring Girle with The Foundry Theatre. The same year he was the subject of a stage festival at DC's Studio Theatre, which included his autobiographical piece John Epperson: Show Trash, As I Lay Lip-Synching, and his play, My Deah: Medea For Dummies, the Medea tale set in The New South. Also in 2004 Epperson played The Stepmother in the New York City Opera production of Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella at Lincoln Center's New York State Theater. The play My Deah opened in an Obie Award-winning production Off Broadway in October 2006 and is now published and licensed by Samuel French. His acclaimed Off Broadway show The Passion of the Crawford, a fantasia on the personality of Joan Crawford, toured to California, Florida and Washington, D.C. Lypsinka launched the 2007 Spring collection of MAC Cosmetics centered around the Barbie doll. Epperson's version of James Kirkwood's infamous play Legends! was produced at Studio Theatre in DC, Summer 2010. In 2011 Lypsinka performed in a Fifth Avenue window of Bergdorf Goodman as a launch for fashion week. Epperson and Lypsinka are the subjects of an Emmy-winning television documentary for PBS. He provided the preface for the Rizzoli photo book Persona, and is the author of a new screenplay Happy Everything. Mr. Epperson has also written for The Guardian (U.K.), The New York Times, The Washington Postand Interview and The Daily Beast. The sequel to My Deah is in the works. www.lypsinka.com

Founded in 2001, Transport Group, under the leadership of Jack Cummings III, Artistic Director, and Lori Fineman, Executive Director, is a not-for-profit theatre company that stages new works and re-imagined revivals by American writers. Their visually progressive productions of emotionally classic stories explore the challenges of relationships and identity in America. Transport Group is the winner of a special Drama Desk Award for its "breadth of vision and its presentation of challenging productions." Transport Group presented its premiere production in 2002: Thornton Wilder's Our Town, which featured older actors in the roles of Emily and George and a twelve-year-old girl as the Stage Manager. Its second production, Requiem for William, an evening of seven seldom produced plays by William Inge, that featured a cast of 26 as well as original songs, premiered in 2003. In 2004 the company presented the first New York revival of Michael John LaChiusa's First Lady Suite, which received rave reviews, played to sold-out houses, and earned two Drama Desk Award nominations including Outstanding Revival of a Musical. Other productions include the world premiere of the musical The Audience, which featured a cast of 46 actors and earned three Drama Desk Award nominations, including Outstanding Musical; Normal, a new musical about a mother's battle to save her daughter from anorexia; cul-de-sac, a new play by Tony Award nominee John Cariani; the first New York revival of Tad Mosel's Pulitzer Prize play, All the Way Home; the 50th anniversary, OBIE-winning production of William Inge's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs; the world premiere musicals Crossing Brooklyn, Marcy in the Galaxy, and Being Audrey, and the first New York revival of Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead. Both First Lady Suite and Bury the Deadwere filmed for the New York Performing Arts Library's Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at Lincoln Center. In 2010 Transport Group presented a sold-out, extended engagement of Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band, which received an OBIE Award and was nominated for five 2010 Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Revival of a Play-the most for an off-Broadway play. Transport Group's productions of See Rock City and Other Destinations by Brad Alexander and Adam Mathias, and Hello Again by Michael John LaChiusa combined for eleven 2011 Drama Desk Award nominations and one win. Transport Group's production of Lysistrata Jones, by Douglas Carter Beane and Lewis Flinn, opened to rave reviews, played to sell-out houses, and transferred to Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre where it received a Tony Award nomination for Best Book of a Musical. The company's most recent productions include the Outer Critics Circle nominated run of The Patsy and Jonas, starring OBIE winner David Greenspan; Michael John LaChiusa's world premiere musical, Queen of the Mist.(8 Drama Desk nominations and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical); the world premiere of Jonathan Franzen's House For Sale; and the critically-acclaimed musical, The Memory Show, starring Catherine Cox and Leslie Kritzer. For more information about Transport Group visit www.transportgroup.org.

Transport Group is currently in the middle of its 20th Century Project, a ten-year initiative spanning ten productions, each production focusing on a different decade of the 20th century. The ten productions comprise five musicals and five plays-including three commissioned musicals, two commissioned plays, and five revivals. Its most recent production, Queen of the Mist, was the project's inaugural presentation.

Transport Group's all-star concert of Once Upon A Mattress will take place Monday, June 17 at 7pm at the The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street. Premium reserved seats start at $125 and general admission tickets start at $69. Tickets may be purchased by visiting www.transportgroup.org or by phoning 212-564-0333.