NY City Encores: Jerry Zaks, Marc Bruni and Casey Nicholaw to direct new season

New York City Center�s Encores! series announces directors for the three 2009-10 season musicals.

Jerry Zaks will direct the season opener, Girl Crazy, with music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin and book by Guy Bolton and Jack McGowan.

Marc Bruni will direct Fanny, a musical play by S. N. Behrman and Joshua Logan, with music and lyrics by Harold Rome. Fanny will be the 50th Encores! production presented by City Center since 1994.

Casey Nicholaw will direct and choreograph Anyone Can Whistle, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents� 1964 musical.

In addition, it was announced that Encores! Music Director Rob Berman will helm both Fanny and Anyone Can Whistle, and former Encores! Music Director Rob Fisher will return as Guest Music Director for Girl Crazy.

New York City Center 2009-10 Encores! Season:

Girl Crazy (19 � 22 Nov 2009)
Opened at the Alvin Theatre on 14 Oct 1930 and ran for 272 performances.

Music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin
Book by Guy Bolton and Jack McGowan
Directed by Jerry Zaks
Guest Music Direction by Rob Fisher

Girl Crazy, the Gershwin's fanciful depression-era musical of 1930, is the tale of a sophisticated New Yorker marooned in a dusty Western cowtown with no one who understands him but the Yiddish-speaking cabbie who brought him there and no one to love but the only woman within 50 miles. The show gave birth to one of the all-time flashiest Broadway scores, featuring �I Got Rhythm,� �Embraceable You,� �But Not For Me� and �Boy! What Love Has Done To Me,� among others.

Fanny (4 - 7 Feb 2010)
Opened at the Majestic Theater on 4 Nov 1954 and played for a total of 888 performances.

A musical play by S. N. Behrman and Joshua Logan
Based on the Trilogy of Marcel Pagnol
Music and lyrics by Harold Rome
Directed by Marc Bruni
Music Direction by Rob Berman

Fanny, based on Marcel Pagnol�s trilogy Marius, Fanny and Cesar and set in Marseille, is among Broadway�s greatest love stories � a tale of a young girl�s passion for a young man so in love with the sea that he leaves her, little realizing that she is pregnant with his child. Her marriage of convenience to a wealthy older man desperate to have an heir is complicated by the sailor�s return years later. Joshua Logan and S.N. Behrman provided an earthy book, and Harold Rome�s score contains some of the most ardent and sweeping melodies ever written for the theater, including the title song, �Restless Heart� and �Never Too Late For Love.�

Anyone Can Whistle (8 - 11 Apr 2010)
Opened at the Majestic Theatre on 4 Apr 1964, directed by Arthur Laurents and played for 12 previews and 9 performances.

Book by Arthur Laurents
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw
Music Direction by Rob Berman

Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents� experimental satire of any and every target on the American cultural scene of the moment � conformity, psychology, race relations, greed, religion, politics � divided the critics, thrilled the emerging counter-culture, baffled the masses and closed quickly, becoming an instant legend that has grown over the years as Sondheim�s reputation has soared. The title song and �With So Little to Be Sure Of� have survived as cabaret classics, but the rarely-heard complete score is a riot of jazzy, show-biz razzmatazz, waltzes, gospel numbers and Broadway pastiche.

Jerry Zaks directed 'Stairway to Paradise' and 'Bye Bye Birdie' for Encores! and acted in the first production, 'Fiorello.' He has won four Tony Awards: 'The House of Blue Leaves,' 'Lend Me a Tenor,' 'Six Degrees of Separation' and 'Guys and Dolls,' and three Tony nominations: 'Anything Goes,' 'Smokey Joe's Cafe' and 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.'

Marc Bruni is directing 'Ordinary Days' for Roundabout Underground this fall. 'Legally Blonde,' 'Irving Berlin's White Christmas,' 'The Pajama Game,' 'Grease,' 'Wonderful Town,' 'High Fidelity,' 'Sweet Charity,' 'La Cage Aux Folles' and 'Little Shop Of Horrors' (Bway/Tour) as well as on City Center Encores! productions of 'Finian's Rainbow,' 'No, No, Nanette,' 'Applause,' '70, Girls, 70' and 'Bye Bye Birdie.'

Casey Nicholaw was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Choreography for Monty Python's 'Spamalot' and also for his direction and choreography for the Broadway production of 'The Drowsy Chaperone.' Other New York credits include 'Candide' starring Patti LuPone and Kristin Chenoweth for NY Philharmonic (also on PBS Great Performances) and 'South Pacific' at Carnegie Hall with Reba McEntire and Brian Stokes Mitchell (also on PBS Great Performances). His previous Encores! credits include director/choreographer of 'Follies, the musical staging of 'Can-Can' and the 'Bye Bye Birdie' choreography. Upcoming projects include the new musicals 'Minsky's,' 'Elf,' and 'Robin and the 7 Hoods.'

Rob Fisher was the founding music director and conductor of Encores! from its inception in 1994 until 2005, for which he won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Special Achievement in 1997. He served as Music Director for the 40th anniversary production of 'Hair' in Central Park (continuing his association with the Broadway revival in 2009), for the revival of 'My Fair Lady' with the New York Philharmonic in 2007 and for 'Chicago' and its Grammy Award-winning cast album.

Rob Berman is entering his third season as music director of Encores!, where he has conducted 'Stairway to Paradise,' 'Damn Yankees,' 'Music in the Air' and 'Finian's Rainbow.' This fall he will be conducting the Broadway transfer of 'Finian's Rainbow' at the St. James Theater. Other Broadway credits include 'Irving Berlin's White Christmas,' for which he serves as music supervisor, the Tony Award-winning revival of 'The Pajama Game,' and 'Wonderful Town.'

The Newman�s Own Foundation is a sponsor of Encores! The Newman's Own Foundation is an independent, private foundation which derives its grant-making income from royalty payments received in conjunction with the sale of Newman's Own food products. Since the inception of Newman's Own in the early 1980s, over $250 million has been donated to thousands of charitable organizations worldwide.

The season is also made possible, in part, by the Stephanie and Fred Shuman Fund for Encores!

New York City Center Encores! 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 others. 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.