Musical theater fans have a new reason to plan their trips to New York City next spring: New York City Center has announced some casting for their 2014 Encores! series with some serious Broadway heavyweights.
Playbill is reporting that Tony Award-winner Christian Borle (who also starred in the late, lamented Smash TV show) will star as all the male leads in the Cy Coleman-Carolyn Leigh-Neil Simon musical Little Me, which will run from February 5-19, 2014. According to Encores!, "Little Me is the story of the glamorous Belle Poitrine, a self-invented celebrity who has spent her life in pursuit of wealth, culture and social position. Her seven oddball lovers are played by one actor: seven plum roles, from an innocent college boy to an octogenarian lecher to the dying king of a tiny European country that doesn’t seem to exist." Songs include "I've Got Your Number," "Real Live Girl" and "The Other Side of the Tracks."
Frank Loesser's 1956 musical The Most Happy Fella will feature Shuler Hensley (a Tony-winner for Oklahoma!) as Tony. Tony winner Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon) will direct and choreograph the production that runs April 2-6, 2014. Songs include "Joey, Joey, Joey," "Somebody Somewhere," "My Heart Is So Full of You," "Big D" and "Standing on the Corner."
The final musical of the season will be the 1956 French musical Irma La Douce, the first non-American musical to be produced in the history of the series. Tony Award winner John Doyle (Company, Sweeney Todd, Passion) will direct the May 7-11, 2014 run. It has music by Marguerite Monnot and English book and lyrics by Julian More, David Heneker and Monty Norman. The musical was made into a film that starred Shirley MacLaine in the title role, and includes songs like "Our Language of Love," "The Valse Millieu" and "Dis Donc."
It is worth noting that several Encores! productions transferred to open-ended Broadway runs: The revival of Chicago, which sparked the 2002 Best Picture Oscar-winning film, got its start at Encores!
Subscriptions for the season go on sale August 5. Visit NYCityCenter.org.