NY City 15th Encores season

Tony Award-winner Christine Ebersole will star in Applause, directed by two-time Tony Award-winner Kathleen Marshall (Pajama Game, Wonderful Town), the opening show of the Encores! series, running from 7 - 10 Feb 2008.

Next up is Joseph Stein and Marc Blitzstein�s rarely seen Juno, directed by Tony Award-winner Garry Hynes (Beauty Queen of Leenane), 27 - 30 Mar 2008

The final show of the season is No, No, Nanette, starring Rosie O�Donnell and Tony Award-winner Beth Leavel and directed by Tony Award-winner Walter Bobbie (Chicago), running from 8 - 12 May 2008.

Rob Berman has been appointed music director for the 2008 season.

Tony-winner Christine Ebersole (Grey Gardens) will star as Margo Channing in Applause, the 1970 Tony Award-winning musical with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams and book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, based on the classic film All About Eve, about a great Broadway star and her duplicitous understudy. Kathleen Marshall will direct and Rob Berman will be the music director. The show will run from 7 � 10 Feb 2008.

The original Broadway production, starring Lauren Bacall, opened at the Palace Theatre on 30 Mar 1970, playing a total of 896 performances. Songs from Applause include 'Applause,' 'Welcome to the Theater,' and 'Good Friends.'

Juno chronicles the disintegration of an Irish family in Dublin in the early 1920s, during the confrontations between the Irish Republican Army and the British. Juno Boyle is the hardworking matriarch who struggles heroically to hold the family together in the face of war, betrayal, and her husband's drinking.

The musical will be directed by Garry Hynes, with music director by Eric Stern and musical Staging by Warren Carlyle. Juno will run from 27 - 30 Mar 2007.

The original Broadway production of Juno opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on 9 Mar 1959, starring Shirley Booth and Melvin Douglas, directed by Jose Ferrer, and choreographed by Agnes de Mille. It played 16 performances. Songs include 'I Wish It So,' 'We�re Alive' and 'One Kind Word.'

The 2008 Encores! season will conclude with No, No, Nanette, starring Rosie O�Donnell and Tony Award-winner Beth Leavel (The Drowsy Chaperone). Walter Bobbie, who served as Artistic Director of the series in 1995 and 1996, and directed the multi-award winning Chicago for Encores! on Broadway and around the world, will return to direct; music direction will be by Encores! founding music director Rob Fisher. The musical will run from 8 - 12 May 2008.

Based on the comedy My Lady Friends by Frank Mandel and Emily Nyitray, No, No, Nanette is a light-hearted tale of millionaires, misunderstood wives, innocent young girls, beautiful women and betrayal, with lots of tap dancing.

No, No, Nanette has had two major Broadway productions; the show originally opened in 1925, and was revived and reconceived in 1971 in a production supervised by Busby Berkeley and adapted and directed by Bert Shevelove. Encores! will present the 1971 version of Nanette, which has music by Vincent Youmans, lyrics by Irving Caesar and Otto Harbach, and book by Otto Harbach. The show features such classic songs as �Tea for Two� and �I Want to Be Happy.�

New York City Center Encores! (Jack Viertel, Artistic Director) has, since 1994, celebrated the rarely-heard works of America�s most important composers and lyricists. Conceived as �concert versions,� each Encores! season gives three scores the chance to be heard as originally intended by their creators.

Over the years, Encores! has presented the works of the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, Bock and Harnick, Burt Bacharach, Kander and Ebb, Comden and Green, and many more.

The program is the recipient of a special 2000 Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre, as well as an Outer Critics Circle Award, Lucille Lortel Award and Jujamcyn Theaters Award.