Groener, McGrath, Scalera & More Star In Sondheim's PUTTING IT TOGETHER At SCR 9/11-10/11

South Coast Repertory kicks off the 2009-10 Season with Putting It Together, a compilation of Stephen Sondheim songs, that the composer put together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, creating a narrative set at a cocktail party in an elegant Manhattan condo. The non-traditional musical, led by Broadway and television star Harry Groener, has a cast of five (a glamorous but slightly jaded couple, a starry-eyed younger couple and a savvy observer) who sing more than 30 songs that reflect their lives, lifestyles and moods of the moment. Some of the songs will be familiar, some less so, a few were even cut from their original musical scores, but they are all sophisticated, smart and drop-dead droll. All, in other words, Sondheim.

Nick DeGruccio directs and Dennis Castellano is musical director of Putting It Together, which will run from Sept. 11 through Oct. 11 on the Segerstrom Stage. Low-priced previews are available from Sept. 11 through Sept. 17. Opening night is Sept. 18. Press night is Saturday, Sept. 19 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets to Putting It Together may be purchased online at www.scr.org, by phone at (714) 708-5555 or in person at the SCR box office.

Sondheim is arguably America's preeminent composer/lyricist, and certainly its most erudite, winner of six Tony Awards, an Academy Award and the Pulitizer Prize for drama. DeGruccio is a multi-award-winning Los Angeles director.

Groener and Mary GorDon Murray play the host couple, exuding glamour and success as well as world weariness and hints of infidelity. Groener was last seen at SCR as George in Sunday in the Park With George and last seen on Broadway as King Arthur in Spamalot. Murray is new to SCR, as are Dan Callaway and Niki Scalera, who play the younger man and woman. Matt McGrath is the fifth member of the cast, playing an observer in guises including a handyman and a nurse. He was seen at SCR in Raised in Captivity and Ridiculous Fraud.

The creative team for Putting It Together is composed of Thomas Buderwitz (Set Design), Soojin Lee (Costume Design), Steven Young (Lighting Design), Drew Dalzell (Sound Design), Linda Sullivan Baity (Dramaturg) and Jamie A. Tucker (Stage Manager).

Dr. S.L. and Mrs. Betty Eu Huang/Huang Family Foundation are the Honorary Producers and Haskell & White LLP is the Corporate Honorary Producer of Putting It Together. Segerstrom Stage Season Media Partner is KOCE-TV. KPCC 89.3 and Coast Magazine are Media Partners of Putting It Together.

Associated events taking place during the run of Putting It Together include:

POST-SHOW DISCUSSIONS Wednesday, Sept. 23 & Tuesday, Sept. 29

Discuss the play with members of the Putting It Together cast during free post-show discussions led by South Coast Repertory's literary team after the 7:30 p.m. performances on September 23 and 29.

INSIDE THE SEASON: Putting It Together, Saturday, Sept. 26, 10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. $12

Inside the Season is a series of interactive classes that provide a comprehensive inside look at the theatrical production process. Each two-hour class is led by Literary and Education Associate Linda Sullivan Baity and features creative personnel from South Coast Repertory's current production. Tickets are $12 each and can be purchased online at scr.org or by calling the Box Office at (714) 708-5555. (Tickets to Putting It Together are sold separately.)

TICKETS to Putting It Together can be purchased online at www.scr.org, by phone at (714) 708-5555 or by visiting the box office at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa. Performances begin on Sept. 11 and continue through Oct. 11. Ticket prices range from $23 to $70. Low-priced preview performances are available from Sept. 11 to Sept. 17. Performance times: Previews: Friday, Sept. 11 and Saturday, Sept. 12 at 8:00 p.m.; Sunday, Sept. 13, Tuesday, Sept. 15 and Wednesday, Sept. 16 at 7:30 p.m.; and Thursday, Sept. 17 at 8:00 p.m. Regular Performances: Tuesday and Wednesday evenings at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:30 p.m.; and Sunday evenings at 7:30 p.m. Discounts are available for full-time students, patrons 25 years of age and under, educators, seniors and groups of 15 or more. There will be a "Pay-What-You-Will" performance on Saturday, Sept. 19 at 2:30 p.m. ($10 minimum) and an ASL-interpreted performance on Saturday, Oct. 10 at 2:30 p.m.

LOCATION: South Coast Repertory is located at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa, at the Bristol Street/Avenue of the Arts exit off the San Diego (405) Freeway in the Folino Theater Center, part of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Parking is available off Anton Blvd. on Park Center Drive.

COMING UP: The Happy Ones (9/27-10/18), Saturn Returns (10/23-11/22), Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business (11/6-22), A Christmas Carol (11/28-12/26).

Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory, under the artistic direction of David Emmes and Martin Benson, is widely recognized as one of the leading professional theaters in the United States. Founded in 1964, SCR is committed to theater that illuminates the compelling personal and social issues of our time, not only on its stages but through its education and outreach programs. While its productions represent a balance of classic and modern theater, SCR is renowned for its extensive new play development program, including the Pacific Playwrights Festival. Of SCR's more than 400 productions, 103 have been world premieres with subsequent stagings achieving enormous success across America and around the world. SCR-developed works have garnered eight Pulitzer Prize nominations with Margaret Edson's Wit winning the prize in 1999 and David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole in 2007. Located in Costa Mesa, California, in 2002 SCR opened the Folino Theater Center, an expanded three-theater complex that includes the 507-seat Segerstrom Stage, the 336-seat Julianne Argyros Stage and the 94-seat Nicholas Studio.

Stephen Sondheim (Playwright) one of the most influential and accomplished composer/lyricists in Broadway history, was born in New York City and raised in New York and Pennsylvania. As a teenager he met Oscar Hammerstein II, who became Sondheim's mentor. Sondheim graduated from Williams College, where he received the Hutchinson Prize for Music Composition. After graduation he studied music theory and composition with Milton Babbitt. He worked for a short time in the 1950s as a writer for the television show "Topper"; his first professional musical theatre job was as the songwriter for the unproduced musical Saturday Night. He wrote the lyrics for West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959) and Do I Hear A Waltz? (1965), as well as additional lyrics for Candide (1973). Musicals for which he has written both music and lyrics include A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1962), Anyone Can Whistle (1964), Company (1970 - 1971 Tony Award Music and Best Lyrics), Follies (1971 - 1972 Tony Award Score and New York Drama Critics Circle Award; revised in London, 1987), A Little Night Music (1973 - Tony Award Score), The Frogs (1974), Pacific Overtures (1976 - New York Drama Critics' Circle Award), Sweeney Todd (1979 - Tony Award Score), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sunday In The Park With George (1984 - New York Drama Critics Circle Award; 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama), Into The Woods (1987 - Tony Award Score), Assassins (1991) and Passion (1994 - Tony Award Score). He composed the songs for the television production Evening Primrose (1966), co-authored the film The Last of Sheila (1973) and provided incidental music for The Girls of Summer (1956), Invitation to a March (1961) and Twigs (1971). Side By Side By Sondheim (1976), Marry Me A Little (1981), You're Gonna Love Tomorrow (1983; originally presented as "A Stephen Sondheim Evening") and Putting It Together (1993) are anthologies of his work. He has written scores for the films Stavisky (1974) and Reds (1981) and composed songs for the film Dick Tracy (1990 - Academy Award for Best Song). He is on the Council of the Dramatist Guild, the national association of playwrights, composers and lyricists, having served as its president from 1973 until 1981, and in 1983 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990 he was appointed the first Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University. He was also recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor in 1993.

Nick DeGruccio (Director) is a three-time recipient of the LA Ovation Award for Direction and received the 2008 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (LADCC) Joel Hirschhorn Award for Outstanding Achievement in Musical Theatre as well as the 2009 BackStage Garland Award for Direction for an Outstanding Season of Work. He returns to SCR after directing A Year With Frog and Toad last season. He received Ovation Awards for his direction of The Laramie Project at the Colony Theatre and Laguna Playhouse, 1776 at Performance Riverside and most recently for Jekyll & Hyde at Cabrillo Music Theatre. Recent credits include the West Coast premiere of The Andrews Brothers at Musical Theatre West (LA Ovation Award for Ensemble, nomination for Direction) as well as Kiss of the Spider Woman (four LADCC Nominations) and the L.A. premieres of Thrill Me (two LA Ovation nominations, LADCC nomination) and Dog Sees God (two LADCC nominations, three LA Weekly nominations, GLAAD Media nomination) for Havok Theatre Company's inaugural season. His other productions and Ovation-nominated works include Side By Side By Sondheim for The Rubicon Theatre and Pasadena Playhouse, the L.A. premiere of Side Show (Colony Theatre), The Last Five Years in rep with I Do! I Do! (Pasadena Playhouse), The Spitfire Grill (Laguna Playhouse/OC Weekly Award Best Musical), Guys and Dolls and La Cage Aux Folles (Musical Theatre West), The Full Monty (San Diego Music Theatre), Zanna, Don't! at West Coast Ensemble (LADCC Award for Direction), Bad Apples, a world premiere play for The Rubicon Theatre Company, Beehive at the El Portal Theatre, I Left My Heart...a tribute to Tony Bennett (Welk Resort), My Way (La Mirada PAC) and Altar Boyz for The Welk Resort. For Musical Theatre Guild, he directed the L.A. premiere of A Man Of No Importance (GLAAD Media Award nomination), Andrew Lippa's The Wild Party and How Now Dow Jones. Other directing credits include: Basic Training (2nd Stage/NAACP nomination for Direction), The Fantasticks (Performance Riverside), Pippin (BCLO) and Happily Ever After...After All, with voice overs by Angela Lansbury (9 O'clock Players). Mr. DeGruccio is an alumnus of the Lincoln Center Theatre Director's Lab West. www.nickdegruccio.com

DENNIS CASTELLANO (Musical Director) has musically directed the SCR productions of A Little Night Music, A Christmas Carol, Happy End, Sunday in the Park with George and A Chorus of Disapproval. Recent credits include Cinderella and the American premiere of Twice Upon a Time for Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities; Me and My Girl and A Chorus Line for The Music Theatre of Wichita; My Fair Lady, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Guys and Dolls and Annie Get Your Gun for McCoy-Rigby Entertainment; The King and I, A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum and Thoroughly Modern Millie for Musical Theatre West; Li'l Abner for the Musical Theatre Guild; and this past summer conducted Sweeney Todd and Evita for the Sacramento Music Circus where he has conducted for the past 20 seasons. Castellano serves as the Head of the Music Theatre Program at UC Irvine and is very proud of his many students performing in New York and around the country.

Dan Callaway played Raoul in the Broadway national tour of The Phantom of the Opera, Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance at the Guthrie Theater, and William in the Broadway-bound musical The Girl Who Would Be King written by Rob Sternin and Pru Fraser (creators of TV's "The Nanny" and "Who's the Boss?"). Other credits include Jesus Christ Superstar at the St. Louis MUNY, Cinderella at Arkansas Repertory, The Caucasian Chalk Circle at Hangar Theatre, My Fair Lady at Sacramento Music Circus, and Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings at the Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena. He performed in Linda Eder's Broadway Concert at the Gershwin Theatre, televised on the Bravo Network, and he appeared in Kurt Weill's One Touch of Venus at the Royal Opera House in London. Most recently, he completed a run of Pippin as the voice of Charlemagne at the Mark Taper Forum in conjunction with Deaf West Theatre. Callaway teaches musical theatre classes in Los Angeles at Our Learning Spot (www.ourlearningspot.com). He is also co-founder of Ciao Bella Productions which he owns and operates with his wife, Tony-nominated producer Heather Provost.

Harry Groener was last seen at SCR in 1996 as Bluntschli in George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man and in 1989 as George in Sunday in the Park With George by Stephen Sondheim. Mr. Groener's Broadway credits include: Crazy for You (Tony nomination) Oklahoma! (Theatre World Award, Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations), Cats (Tony Award nomination), Harrigan and Hart with Mark Hamill (Drama Desk Award nomination), Oh Brother!, Is There Life After High School, Sleight of Hand, George in Sunday in the Park With George, Imaginary Friends, and in 2006, King Arthur in Spamalot. Lincoln Center credits include Twelve Dreams by James Lapine. Off-Broadway he appeared in Picasso at the Lapin Agile by Steve Martin and If Love Were All with Twiggy. His more than 60 television credits include the Mayor in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Ralph in "Dear John," and episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" ("Voyger" and "Enterprise"), "Medium," "Bones," "Las Vagas," "CSI," "Mad About You," "Breaking Bad" and "The West Wing." Film credits include About Schmidt with Jack Nicholson, Road to Perdition with Tom Hanks, Amistad, Dance With Me with Vanessa Williams, Patch Adams with Robin Williams, Brubaker with Robert Redford, Manna From Heaven, Role of a Lifetime with Scott Bakula and The Day the World Ended. He is an Associate Artist of The Globe Theatre in San Diego and a member of The Antaeus Company in Los Angeles.

Matt McGrath appeared previously at SCR in the Pacific Playwrights Festival reading of Doctor Cerberus, the NewSCRipts reading of House to Half and the productions of Ridiculous Fraud and Raised in Captivity. He most recently appeared in Bell, Book and Candle at Bay Street Theatre Festival and Caroline in Jersey at Williamstown Theatre Festival. McGrath starred in The Black Rider at Center Theatre Group's Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles; Barbican Theatre in London; American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco; and in Sydney, garnering a Helpmann Award nomination. On Broadway he appeared in Cabaret (Emcee) and A Streetcar Named Desire. Off-Broadway: Hedwig and the Angry Inch, A Fair Country at Lincoln Center Theater; Minutes from the Blue Route, The Dadshuttle, Fat Men in Skirts, The Old Boy, Life During Wartime, Amulets Against the Dragon Forces and Dalton's Back (Drama Desk Award nomination). Regional theatre credits include Japes at Bay Street Theatre Festival; Mother of Invention at Williamstown Theatre Festival; Loot at Williamstown Theatre Festival and La Jolla Playhouse; Distant Fires (LA Weekly Award) and Snakebit. Film credits include Full Grown Men (Tribeca Film Festival), The Notorious Bettie Page, The Anniversary Party, The Broken Hearts Club, Boys Don't Cry, The Impostors, The Substance of Fire, Bob Roberts, The Dadshuttle and Desperate Hours. On television he appeared in "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "Little Britain U.S.A." and "Cruel Doubt".

Mary GorDon Murray most recently appeared as Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd at Sacramento Music Circus. Her Broadway credits include Into the Woods as the Baker's Wife, Little Me for which she received a Tony Award nomination (Best Lead Actress), Footloose, Coastal Disturbances, The Robber Bridegroom, Grease and Play Me a Country Song. Off-Broadway, Murray was in the original casts of A My Name is Alice, The Knife, and The Spitfire Grill. She has worked at many regional theatres around the country, including Arena Stage, The Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse and The Cleveland Play House, as well as playing Gussie in two of Stephen Sondheim's re-worked productions of Merrily We Roll Along. She has worked extensively in television, recently starring on "Nip/Tuck," "CSI," "Bones," "Numb3rs" and "Cold Case." She was Laura Bush opposite Timothy Bottoms in the Showtime movie "DC/9-11: Time of Crisis" and spent many years as Becky on ABC's "One Life to Live." Her feature film work includes Born Yesterday, Poison Ivy and Junior. Murray has won the Drama-Logue Award, the Philadelphia Critics Circle Award and was nominated for the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award.

Niki Scalera, a native of Connecticut, began her career at age five, starring in national commercials and regional theater. At age eight, she starred in the Emmy nominated ABC after school special, Don't Touch, directed by Beau Bridges, where she played a sexually abused child. Other daytime drama work includes "Loving," "All My Children" and "Another World." Niki made her Broadway debut at age 12 in Neil Simon's Jake's Women. Shortly after, she performed off Broadway in Richard Greenberg's Vanishing Act, at Long Wharf Theatre in Our Town with HAl Holbrook and alongside James Naughton and Len Cariou in the industrial musical The American Dream at Century City's Shubert Theatre. After receiving her BA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Scalera toured the country as the rebellious preacher's daughter, Ariel, in the Broadway musical Footloose. She was also an original company member of Queen's We Will Rock You at the Paris, Las Vegas. Her Broadway credits include the original cast of Disney's Tarzan as cover for Jane Porter, and, most recently, Hairspray's Penny Lou Pingleton.

 

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