Encores!

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New York City Center's Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert has been performing since 1994. Encores! is dedicated to performing the full score of musicals that may otherwise rarely be heard in New York City. Each season consists of three different shows. The music of Stephen Sondheim, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Rodgers & Hart, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, Kander & Ebb, Jule Styne, and Comden and Green have been heard at an Encores! production.

Actors involved in productions at Encores! appear with book-in-hand, and have had little more than a week or two of rehearsal. Staging and choreography have become more common over the years.

Performers who have appeared in the Encores! series include Adam Arkin, Philip Bosco, Liz Callaway, Marilyn Cooper, Gregg Edelman, Donna McKechnie, Faith Prince, Stephen Bogardus, Christine Ebersole, Celeste Holm, Christopher Reeve, Tony Goldwyn, Lewis Cleale, Andrea Martin, Peter Scolari, Patti LuPone, Peter Gallagher, Bebe Neuwirth, Jane Krakowski, Vanessa L. Williams, Ann Reinking, James Naughton, Joel Grey, Marcia Lewis, Dorothy Loudon, Tony Randall, Gary Beach, Martin Short, Christine Baranski, Sarah Uriarte Berry, Mario Cantone, Malcolm Gets, Lynn Redgrave, Judy Kuhn, Kristin Chenoweth, Charles S. Dutton, Julie Newmar, Ruthie Henshall, Nathan Lane, Roger Bart, Lewis J. Stadlen, Idina Menzel, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Maurice Hines, F. Murray Abraham, Len Cariou, and Doris Roberts in productions directed by Walter Bobbie, Charles Repole, Susan H. Schulman, Lonny Price, Rob Marshall, Jack O'Brien, Kathleen Marshall, and Ann Reinking, among others.

The Encores! series has been honored with the Tony Award for Excellence in Theatre (2000), the Association for Independent Music "Indie" Award (1998), the Jujamcyn Theater Award (1997), several Lucille Lortel Awards, and an Outer Critics Circle Award.

Cast recordings of the Encores! productions of Call Me Madam, Out Of This World, Pal Joey, Chicago, The Boys From Syracuse, St. Louis Woman, Babes In Arms, Do Re Mi, Tenderloin, and Face the Music have been released.

Accredited scholars can view videotapes (only within the library) of many Encores! productions at the Billy Rose Theater Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

[edit] Productions

1994: Fiorello!, Allegro, Lady in the Dark

1995: Call Me Madam, Out of This World, Pal Joey

1996: DuBarry Was a Lady, One Touch of Venus, Chicago

1997: Sweet Adeline, Promises, Promises, The Boys from Syracuse

1998: Strike Up The Band, Li'l Abner, St. Louis Woman

1999: Babes in Arms, Ziegfeld Follies of 1936, Do Re Mi

2000: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Tenderloin, Wonderful Town

2001: A Connecticut Yankee, Bloomer Girl, Hair

2002: Carnival, Golden Boy, The Pajama Game

2003: House of Flowers, The New Moon, No Strings

2004: Can-Can, Pardon My English, Bye, Bye, Birdie

2005: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Purlie, The Apple Tree

2006: Kismet, 70, Girls, 70, Of Thee I Sing

2007: Follies, Face the Music, Stairway to Paradise, Gypsy: A Musical Fable

2008: No, No Nanette, Juno, Applause, Damn Yankees

2009: On the Town, Music in the Air, Finian's Rainbow

[edit] References/External links