Merrily We Roll Along: Lin-Manuel Miranda to join cast

Lin-Manuel Miranda will play 'Charley Kringas' in Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along, the first New York City Center Encores! production of the season, playing at New York City Center's Main Stage from 8 - 19 Feb 2012.

Miranda is the Tony-winning composer-lyricist of Broadway's 'In the Heights,' which received four 2008 Tony Awards (including Best Orchestrations, Best Choreography and Best Musical), with Lin-Manuel receiving a Tony Award for Best Score as well as a nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. Lin-Manuel is the recipient of the 2009 Grammy Award for 'In The Heights' Original Broadway Cast Album and was named a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Miranda will join the previously announced Celia Keenan-Bolger, Colin Donnell, Betsy Wolfe and Elizabeth Stanley.

Merrily We Roll Along, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth, is a musical about friendship and the compromise of youthful ideals, based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. The musical begins in 1980 and moves backward in time, from 1980 - 1955, telling the story of three friends whose friendship is tested by time, events, ambition and fate.

Directed by James Lapine, Colin Donnell plays 'Franklin Shepard,' an idealistic young Broadway composer turned Hollywood mogul, and Celia Keenan-Bolger plays his loyal but disillusioned friend 'Mary Flynn.' Betsy Wolfe plays 'Beth,' Shepard's wife, and Elizabeth Stanley plays 'Gussie Carnegie', the star of Shepard's first Broadway hit.

Merrily We Roll Along charts the rise of a songwriting team during the years of Sondheim's own early career, and includes the songs "Not a Day Goes By," "Old Friends," "Our Time" and "Opening Doors."

Although unsuccessful in its original 1981 Broadway production (which ran 16 performances at the Alvin Theatre), Merrily has gained stature and reputation over the ensuing years, beginning with a reconfigured version at the La Jolla Playhouse in California in 1985, directed by frequent Sondheim collaborator James Lapine.

New York City Center's Encores! 2012 season will continue with Pipe Dream, based on John Steinbeck's novel 'Sweet Thursday,' with music by Richard Rodgers and, book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, playing from 28 Mar - 1 Apr 2012.

The Encores! season concludes with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, adapted from the novel by Anita Loos, has a book by Anita Loos and Joseph Fields, music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Leo Robin, playing from 9 - 13 May 2012.