Lyrics & Lyricists Continues With IT STARTED WITH A DREAM

The 92nd Street Y continues the 2009 season of Lyrics & Lyricists^TM with David Zippel as host and artistic director of It Started with a Dream, February 21-23. Subtitled David Zippel - Lyrics He Wrote, Lyrics He Wishes He Wrote, the Tony award-winning, Oscar-nominated lyricist of City of Angels and Disney's animated Hercules and Mulan, presents highlights from his own scores and shares his inspirations and personal favorites from the American Songbook. The show features an all-Broadway cast, including vocalists Kate Baldwin (Wonderful Town, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Full Monty), Kevin Earley (A Tale of Two Cities, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Les Misérables), Tony Award-winner Debbie Gravitte (Jerome Robbins' Broadway, Chicago, Les Misérables), Danny Gurwin (Little Women, Urinetown, The Full Monty), and Tony Award-winner Lillias White (The Life, Dreamgirls, and. the voice of "Calliope" in Hercules).

One of the most acclaimed and sought-after lyricists working today, David Zippel's other credits include the Broadway musical The Goodbye Girl (written with Marvin Hamlisch and Neil Simon), The Woman in White (with Andrew Lloyd Webber, for which Zippel won another Tony nomination) and the musical stage version of Wendy Wasserstein's bestselling children's book, Pamela's First Musical, written with Wasserstein and City of Angels collaborator Cy Coleman.

Series artistic director Deborah Grace Winer, in her first season at the helm, notes that this is the first time in over 25 years that L&L will devote an entire show to a contemporary Broadway songwriter at the height of his career--a return to the spirit in which L&L was founded, with the living lyricist as an active participant.

L&L shows are Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 3 and 8 pm, and Monday at 2 and 8 pm. Individual tickets are $60 and $50. There is also a special under-35 ticket price of $25 for the Saturday and Sunday evening shows.

The 92nd Street Y welcomes Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS to the opening performance on Saturday night.

Coming up in 2009

April 4, 5, 6
SUNNY SIDE UP: ROARING THROUGH THE TWENTIES WITH DESYLVA, BROWN & HENDERSON
Robert Kimball, Artistic Director
Joseph Thalken, Vince Giordano, co-Music Directors
Randy Skinner, Stage Director & Choreographer
Featuring Vince Giordano & The Nighthawks, with Nancy Anderson, vocals; Jeffry Denman, vocals & dancer; Jason Graae, vocals; Randy Graff, vocals; Meredith Patterson, vocals & dancer

May 9, 10, 11
THE MAN THAT GOT AWAY: IRA AFTER GEORGE
Rex Reed, Artistic Director, Host
Tedd Firth, Music Director
Caitlin Carter, Stage Director
Lucie Arnaz, vocals; Polly Bergen, vocals; Kurt Reichenbach, vocals; Tom Wopat, vocals

June 6, 7, 8
SUNDAY IN NEW YORK: MEL TORMÉ IN WORDS AND MUSIC
Billy Stritch, Artistic Director, Vocals, Piano
Mark Waldrop, Stage Director
Marilyn Maye, vocals; additional artists TBA

Long one of the 92nd Street Y's most popular programs, the American Songbook series Lyrics & Lyricists^TM was launched in 1970 when longtime Broadway conductor Maurice Levine and lyricist E.Y. "Yip" Harburg (The Wizard of Oz) took to the stage to talk about the then unusual topic of songwriting. Over the years the series has featured every great Broadway and Hollywood lyricist including Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Johnny Mercer, Stephen Sondheim, Dorothy Fields, and Alan Jay Lerner. In 1978, Lyrics & Lyricists began celebrating composers as well as lyricists and, in 1982, the series evolved from first-person histories of the American musical theatre to narrated musical revues. In 2004, the 92nd Street Y reinvented the format yet again when it asked several accomplished champions of the repertoire - artists like John Pizzarelli, Andrea Marcovicci, Rob Fisher, Sheldon Harnick, Robert Kimball and Ted Sperling - to present original programs in the Lyrics & Lyricists tradition: seamless mixtures of information and entertainment with a particular focus on lyrics. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org/lyrics.

The Lyrics & Lyricists series is partially underwritten by The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation. The performances of Lyrics & Lyricists' "Sunday in New York" show are underwritten by Gilda and Henry Block and Kenneth Kolker. The evening performances of L&L on April 5 and May 10 are underwritten by The Henry Nias Foundation, courtesy of Dr. Stanley Edelman. The May 11 evening performance of "The Man That Got Away: Ira After George" is underwritten by Nancy and Jeffrey Lane.

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is the nation's leading industry-based, nonprofit AIDS fundraising and grants making organization. By drawing upon the talents, resources and generosity of the American theatre community, BC/EFA raises funds for AIDS-related causes across the United States. Since its founding in 1988, BC/EFA has raised over $140 million dollars for critically needed services for people with AIDS and other serious illnesses.

BC/EFA is the major supporter of six programs at The Actors' Fund - including The AIDS Initiative, The Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative, 2 supportive housing residences and the Al Hirschfeld Free Health Clinic at The Aurora in NYC - and awards grants to over 400 AIDS and family service organizations yearly.

Founded in 1874 by a group of visionary Jewish leaders, the 92nd Street Y has grown into a wide-ranging cultural, educational and community center serving people of all ages, races, faiths and backgrounds - about 300,000 people each year. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org.

 

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