Tyne Daly Leads DEAR WORLD in Concert Tonight at Valley Performing Arts Center

American musical legend Jerry Herman created the theatrical hat-trick in 1969 when Dear World opened on Broadway. Joining Hello, Dolly! and Mame, Herman became the first composer-lyricist in history to have three productions running simultaneously on Broadway. Now, Valley Performing Arts Center will kick off the new season and its Broadway series tonight, September 30, at 8:00pm with a one night only concert performance of Dear World, starring Tony and Emmy Award winner Tyne Daly in the role of Countess Aurelia.

Daly will lead a cast of 13 performers, accompanied by a live 25-piece orchestra and a student chorus. This concert version, created specifically for VPAC by veteran producer Suzi Dietz, will be directed by Emmy Award winner David Lee. Music Director Darryl Archibald makes his VPAC debut.

Thor Steingraber, Executive Director of VPAC said, "One of my lifetime theatrical highlights was seeing Tyne Daly's Tony Award-winning performance in Gypsy on Broadway. In the role of Mama Rose, Daly followed in the footsteps of the legendary Angela Lansbury. Yet again, Daly inherits a powerhouse role originated by Lansbury - Countess Aurelia in Jerry Herman's Dear World. VPAC's concert version is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Daly to bring to life a rarely performed role, the vision of veteran producers Suzi Dietz and David Lee."

The Broadway Series at Valley Performing Arts Center continues with Kelli O'Hara (October 14), West Side Story (March 10 - 12) and Man of La Mancha (May 5 - 7). Single tickets, ranging from $38 - $73 are available now. For ticket and subscription information, visit ValleyPerformingArtsCenter.org or call (818) 677-3000. Valley Performing Arts Center is located on the campus of California State University, Northridge (CSUN), 18111 Nordhoff Street Northridge, CA 91330-8448, at the corner of Nordhoff and Lindley.

Stepping into the role of Countess Aurelia is a longtime dream for Tyne Daly. When asked by Playbill in 2015 if there are any other musical roles she would like to play, Daly responded, "I would love to do Dear World because I think that was one of Jerry [Herman's] most wonderful scores. That's the only one that I've sort of yearned for."

Tyne Daly has a diverse career, moving with ease from stage to screen. A Tony Award winner for the 1989 Arthur Laurents-directed revival of Gypsy, Daly has also appeared on Broadway in Terrence McNally's Mother and Sons and Master Class, as well as It Shoulda Been You, and David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole. She is perhaps most well-known for her role as police detective Mary Beth Lacey on Cagney & Lacey, for which she won four Emmy awards for Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She received two more Emmy Awards for Judging Amy and Christy. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 2011 was also inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Dear World is based on Jean Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot, written in 1943. The story of Dear World follows Countesses Aurelia, Constance and Gabrielle, who scheme up a plan to stop businessmen from drilling for oil in the Parisian neighborhood of Chaillot. Written as a pithy social commentary, while living in Switzerland during World War II, Giraudoux's "bad men" are corporate fascists, bent on the annihilation of others. His heroine, Countess Aurelia, who stands firmly against greed and corruption, would fit right into the political climate of today.

Jerry Herman had a deep connection with the story, from a young age, having played the role of the mute, while he was a student at the University of Miami. It was during that production, Herman explains, "I absolutely fell in love with the language, the storyline, with the heart of that material. With every aspect of it." Although Herman wished to depart from his earlier hits, Hello Dolly! and Mame, while creating this new musical, his main character, Countess Aurelia is an amalgam of his two earlier heroines. His great gifts of matching lyrics to melody, in the context of story, are in full force in Dear World.

The superb score of Dear World includes standout songs such as "And I Was Beautiful," "Each Tomorrow Morning," "I Never Said I Love You," and "I Don't Want to Know." It inhabits the sounds of a Parisian street corner and evokes the classic French musical interpreters, Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf.

There is never an evening when, somewhere in the world, the music and lyrics of Jerry Herman are not being sung by a lady in a red headdress, or a lady with a bugle, or a middle-aged man in a wig and a boa.

Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage Aux Folles are home to some of the most popular, most-often performed and most successful musical hero(in)es of all time, and have given Jerry the distinction of being the only composer- lyricist in history to have had three musicals that ran more than 1,500 consecutive performances on Broadway.

His first Broadway show was Milk and Honey (1961), followed by Hello, Dolly! (1964), Mame (1966), Dear World (1969), Mack & Mabel (1974), The Grand Tour (1979), La Cage Aux Folles (1983), Jerry's Girls (1985) and Mrs. Santa Claus (1996), a CBS TV special starring Angela Lansbury. His other work includes Showtune, a revue of Jerry's life's work, which performs in regional theatres around the country; two of Herman's classic songs are the emotional highlights of the hit Disney-Pixar film WALL-E.

Jerry Herman's string of awards and honors includes multiple Tonys, Grammys and Drama Desk Awards as well as the Kennedy Center Award, the Johnny Mercer Award, the Richard Rodgers Award, the Oscar Hammerstein Award, the Frederick Lowe Award, and inductions into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Theatre Hall of Fame.