'The Pajama Game' starring Harry Connick, Jr. to play at the American Airline Theatre

Roundabout Theatre Company, by special arrangement with Jeffrey Richards, James Fuld, Jr. and Scott Landis, have announced the Broadway theatrical debut of Harry Connick, Jr. as he stars in a new production of the Tony Award-winning Best Musical, The Pajama Game.

The musical opens at the American Airline Theatre on the 2 Mar 2006, following previews from the 27 Jan 2006. The limited engagement is scheduled to run 20 weeks through to the 18 Jun 2006.

The Pajama Game features a book by George Abbott & Richard Bissell based on Mr. Bissell�s novel, 7 � Cents, and music and lyrics by Richard Adler & Jerry Ross. The book has been adapted for this production by Peter Ackerman.

The Pajama Game features the classic songs �Hey There,� �Steam Heat� and �Hernando�s Hideaway.� The musical is set in the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory during a strenuous labor negotiation. At the musical�s center is the simmering attraction between a handsome new manager and a lovely union representative. But their budding romance is threatened by the impending strike.

Harry Connick, Jr. (Sid Sorokin) will make his Broadway theatrical debut in The Pajama Game. His concert production Harry Connick, Jr. and His Orchestra - Live on Broadway, directed by Joe Layton was produced in 1990 at the Lunt-Fontaine Theatre. In 2001, he received a Tony nomination for Best Original Score for Thou Shalt Not, directed by Susan Stroman at the Plymouth Theatre. Harry Connick, Jr., also co-starred as �Lieutenant Cable� opposite Glenn Close in the 2001 TV film of Rodgers & Hammerstein�s South Pacific.

Additional casting information to be announced.

The musical will be directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, who returns to the Roundabout, where she choreographed their productions of Follies and 1776. She won a 2004 Tony Award for Wonderful Town.

The design team for The Pajama Game includes Derek McLane (sets), Martin Pakledinaz (costumes), Peter Kaczorowski (lights) with music direction by David Chase.

The Pajama Game opened on Broadway on the 13 May 1954, ran for 1063 performances and won the Tony Award for Best Musical of 1955. A movie version starring Doris Day was released in 1957. The musical was last seen on Broadway in a production starring Hal Linden and Barbara McNair in 1973.

Biographies:

Harry Connick, Jr. (Sid Sorokin). Connick achieved widespread success as a musician when director Rob Reiner asked him to contribute the score to his 1989 smash When Harry Met Sally, leading to Connick�s first multi-platinum album (also his first big band recording.) At the same time, Connick has built a successful film career, appearing both on screen and soundtracks. After making his acting debut in Memphis Belle in 1990, he has also been seen in Little Man Tate, Copycat, Independence Day, Excess Baggage, Hope Floats, Life Without Dick, and John Grisham�s Micky. As a television performer, Connick has starred in two holiday specials built around his best selling holiday albums �When My Heart Finds Christmas� (CBS) and �Harry for the Holidays� (NBC), and two Great Performances/PBS concert specials �Swingin� Out Live� and �Harry Connick, Jr.: Only You In Concert� for which he won a 2004 Emmy. In addition, he starred opposite Glenn Close in the ABC TV adaptation of the musical �South Pacific� and played the recurring role of Dr. Leo Markus on the NBC hit series �Will & Grace.�

Kathleen Marshal (Director/Choreographer). On Broadway, she directed and choreographed Wonderful Town (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics and Astaire Awards for choreography; Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations for direction) and choreographed Little Shop Of Horrors, Follies (Roundabout; Outer Critics nomination), Seussical, Kiss Me Kate (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics and Astaire nominations), Ring Round The Moon (Lincoln Center Theater), 1776 (Roundabout) and Swinging On A Star (Drama Desk nomination). Off -Broadway, she directed and choreographed Saturday Night (Second Stage) and choreographed Violet (Playwright�s Horizon) and As Thousands Cheer (Drama Dept). For City Center Encores!, she directed and choreographed House Of Flowers, Carnival, Hair, Wonderful Town and Babes In Arms and served as Artistic Director for four seasons. In the West End, she choreographed Kiss Me Kate (Olivier nomination).

George Abbott (Book). A theatrical producer, director, and playwright, he was born in 1887 in Forestville, N.Y. In 1913, he began in the theater as an actor and, during a career that spanned eight decades, was celebrated as a coauthor, director, or producer of more than 100 Broadway plays, including The Fall Guy (1925), his first authorial credit; Broadway (1926), his first smash hit; and the popular farce Three Men on a Horse (1935, revival 1969). He produced several musicals by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, notably On Your Toes (1936, revival 1954, 1983) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938). His later successes include Call Me Madame (1950), Wonderful Town (1953), The Pajama Game (1954, film 1957, revival 1973), Damn Yankees (1955, film 1958, revival 1994), and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962, film 1966). From 1948 to 1962 Abbott won 40 Tony Awards. Fiorello! (1959), a musical he coauthored with Jerome Weidman, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1960. He won a Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1982.

Richard Bissell (Book). Richard Pike Bissell (1913 - 1977) was a native of Dubuque, Iowa. He attended an elite prep school in New Hampshire and was a 1936 graduate of Harvard University. After receiving his B.A. in anthropology, Bissell took a job as a seaman on the American Export Lines and later joined the crew of the Central Barge Company of Chicago. He worked on towboats on the Ohio, Mississippi, Illinois, Monongahela, and Tennessee rivers, rising from a deckhand to a river pilot. When WWII ended he returned to Dubuque and resumed his work for H.B. Glover Company, the garment factory founded by his grandfather a century earlier. Bissell began writing about his river experiences and had his stories published in journals such as Atlantic Monthly, Colliers, and Esquire. Bissell's greatest success came when he wrote a humorous novel based on the activities at the garment factory, 7 � Cents. The family moved to the East coast so he could turn the book into a musical play for Broadway. Now titled The Pajama Game, it was a smash and soon became a motion picture. This experience provided the fodder for his novel Say, Darling, which also became a Broadway musical. Richard Bissell wrote twelve books and numerous articles over the course of his career.

Richard Adler (Music and Lyrics). Richard Adler was born in New York City in 1921. He co-composed the music and lyrics for numerous musicals including The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees, both of which won Tony awards for best musical and best score. Mr. Adler's score for his musical about Africa, Kwamina, earned him a Tony nomination. Recordings of his biggest hit songs - �You Gotta Have Heart,� �Hey There,,� �Whatever Lola Wants� �Everybody Loves a Lover� and more - have sold over 30 million copies.

Jerry Ross (Music and Lyrics). (1926 - 11 Nov 1955) was born in 1926 in New York City. He studied music at New York University and met Richard Adler in 1950. They had published several songs together when they attracted the attention of writer/publisher Frank Loesser and became his prot�g�s. By 1953, their song "Rags to Riches" rocketed to number 1 on the charts, becoming a long-standing smash hit, recorded by Tony Bennett. Ross began his career in the Broadway Theater with John Murray Anderson�s Almanac, a revue for which he and Richard Adler wrote most of the songs. In 1954, George Abbott contracted this promising young songwriting duo to write the score for a new musical about union/management relations at a pajama factory. The Pajama Game won the coveted Tony Award for best score, as well as the Donaldson Award and the Variety Drama Critics Award. Songs from the show included "Hernando�s Hideaway" and "Hey There" (a hit for Rosemary Clooney), both of which also topped the Hit Parade of popular songs. In May 1955, the musical Damn Yankees opened and won Ross the Tony Award, the Donaldson Award, and the Variety Drama Critics Award.

Peter Ackerman (Adaptation) is the author of the play Things You Shouldn�t Say Past Midnight, which ran for six months at the Promenade Theatre. Peter co-wrote the Academy Award nominated film Ice Age. He recently wrote the scripts for the films Jumanji 2 (soon to go into production) and The Family Jewels.