Zeta-Jones, Garber, Peters, Rivera et al. to Honor Lansbury at Drama League's 'A Musical Celebration of Broadway' Benefit, 2/8

The Drama League is pleased to announce that Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bernadette Peters, Christine Ebersole, Audra McDonald, Victor Garber, Chita Rivera, Donna Murphy and Cheyenne Jackson are among the roster of performers slated to appear in its annual all-star benefit gala, "A MUSICAL CELEBRATION OF BROADWAY."

This year's black-tie event, to be held on Monday, February 8, 2010 in the Grand Ballroom at The Pierre New York (2 East 61st Street at 5th Avenue), will honor five-time Tony Award winner and entertainment icon Angela Lansbury.

The roster of confirmed performers also includes T.R. Knight, Brian d'Arcy James, Malcolm Gets, Len Cariou, Christopher Sieber, Will Swenson, Will Chase, Chad Kimball, Marian Seldes, Beth Fowler and Sarah Rice. The evening will include selections from Lansbury's prolific career, including Mame, Sweeney Todd, Beauty and the Beast, Anyone Can Whistle, Gypsy and more.

"A MUSICAL CELEBRATION OF BROADWAY" will be co-directed by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer and his Spring Awakening Associate Director, Beatrice Terry.

"Angela Lansbury is a true theatre legend," said Drama League Board Member Donna Murphy, who is slated to perform "Me and My Town" from Anyone Can Whistle at the February gala. "Her talent, grace, wisdom, spirit and commitment are an inspiration to everyone working in the theatre today. The Drama League is excited to celebrate her astonishing career."

Angela Lansbury has enjoyed a career without precedent. Her professional life spans more than a half-century during which she flourished, first as a star of motion pictures, then as a five-time Tony Award-winning Broadway musical star.

She is currently appearing on Broadway in the role of Madame Armfeldt in the revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, co-starring Catherine Zeta-Jones.

She appeared most recently on Broadway as Madame Arcati in the 2009 revival of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit, for which she received her fifth Tony Award, as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards; and in 2006 in Terrence McNally's Deuce, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. She made her Broadway debut in 1957 starring as Bert Lahr's wife in the French farce, Hotel Paradiso.

In 1960, she came back to Broadway as Joan Plowright's mother in the season's most acclaimed drama, A Taste of Honey, by Shelagh Delaney. A year later, she starred on Broadway in her first musical, Anyone Can Whistle. Lansbury returned to New York in triumph in 1966 as Mame, for which she won the first of her unprecedented four Tony Awards as Best Actress in a Musical.

She received the others as the Madwoman of Chaillot in Dear World (1968), as Mama Rose in the 1974 revival of Gypsy and as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd (1979). From 1984-1996 she starred as Jessica Fletcher, mystery-writing amateur sleuth, on "Murder, She Wrote," the longest-running detective drama series in the history of television, for which she won four Golden Globe Awards. 

Each year, The Drama League's one-night-only gala concert boasts an incredible roster of Broadway's biggest and brightest stars, performing favorite songs from Broadway seasons past and present. This year, the show will include performances highlighting Ms. Lanbury's unequalled stage career.

The musical revue is the highlight of The Drama League's annual benefit gala at The Pierre New York.

The festive evening will begin at 7 p.m. with a cocktail reception and silent auction/raffle in the Cotillion Room, followed by an elegant seated dinner at 8 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom, followed by the performance.

All proceeds from "A MUSICAL CELEBRATION OF BROADWAY" support The Drama League, which was founded in 1916 as an association of theatre professionals and patrons dedicated to encouraging the finest in professional theatre and has since then developed into the theatre's premiere service organization.

Tickets for "A MUSICAL CELEBRATION OF BROADWAY" are $750 - $1,995. Tables of ten are available from $7,500 - $18,000.

To reserve seats or receive any additional information about The Drama League, please call Special Events Manager Roger Calderon at (212) 244-9494, ext. 5. For more information, please visit www.dramaleague.org.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / Retna Ltd.