Times Talks to Feature Foster, Mazzie, Danieley et al. August 2010

The New York Times' Times Talks series will feature two Summer Nights on Broadway events, The Times Center has announced. 

On August 16, the event will center on NEXT TO NORMAL and will feature composer Tom Kitt and cast members Marin Mazzie, Jason Danieley, Brian Crumm, and Meghann Fahy.  The cast members will perform excerpts from the show, and Kitt will participate in a question and answer session and give a special performance.  The event will run from 6pm to 7pm.

On August 23, the event will center on the upcoming Broadway revival of ANYTHING GOES and will feature a talk and question and answer session with director Kathleen Marshall and Tony Award-winning star Sutton Foster.  The event will run from 6pm to 7pm.

Both events will be held at the Times Center, 242 West 41st Street, New York City.  For more information and to purchase tickets, visit thetimescenter.com.

NEXT TO NORMAL has had a surprising and highly unlikely route to Broadway. The musical originally opened at Off-Broadway's Second Stage Theatre On February 13, 2008. Producer David Stone, who had been guiding the musical since 2005, took the unexpected step of bringing the show to Washington D.C.'s Arena Stage where it was significantly reworked, and then back to New York and to Broadway, where it opened to rave reviews on April 15, 2009. This unusual trajectory from a New York Off-Broadway premiere to an out-of-town regional theatre engagement and then back to New York is unprecedented.

NEXT TO NORMAL was chosen as "one of the year's ten best" by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Time Out New York, New York Daily News, The Bergen Record, and NY1 - more than any other musical from that season.

Winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and three 2009 Tony Awards - Best Score, Best Actress in a Musical (for Alice Ripley), and Best Orchestrations - NEXT TO NORMAL features music by Tom Kitt, book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey, and direction by Michael Greif. The creative team also includes Mark Wendland (set design), Jeff Mahshie (costume design), Kevin Adams (lighting design), and Brian Ronan (sound design). Musical staging is by Sergio Trujillo and musical direction by Charlie Alterman. Orchestrations are by Michael Starobin and Tom Kitt and vocal arrangements by AnnMarie Milazzo.In ANYTHING GOES, when the S.S. American heads out to sea, etiquette and convention head out the portholes as two unlikely pairs set off on the course to true love... proving that sometimes destiny needs a little help from a crew of singing sailors, an exotic disguise and some good old-fashioned blackmail. Peppering this hilariously bumpy ride are some of musical theater's most memorable standards, including "You're the Top," "Blow, Gabriel, Blow," "It's De-Lovely," "I Get A Kick Out of You," and "Anything Goes."

Two-time Tony® Award winner Kathleen Marshall returns to the Roundabout, where she directed and choreographed the Tony® Award winning musical The Pajama Game starring Harry Connick Jr. and Kelli O'Hara. Her history with Roundabout began in 1993 when she was the Associate Choreographer to her brother Rob Marshall in the critically acclaimed Broadway production of She Loves Me. Kathleen also choreographed Roundabout's productions of Follies and 1776 and won a 2004 Tony® Award for her choreography of Wonderful Town. Tony Award winner Sutton Foster will star as Reno Sweeney.

The musical ANYTHING GOES premiered on Broadway on November 21, 1934 at the Alvin Theatre, starring Ethel Merman. The first Broadway revival of ANYTHING GOES premiered on Broadway on October 19, 1987 at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre and received the Tony® Award for best revival.

Photo Credit: Genevieve Rafter-Keddy