BERNADETTE PETERS, CYRILLE AIMÉE

Cast in

A BED AND A CHAIR:

A New York Love Affair

New Stephen Sondheim/Wynton Marsalis Collaboration

Presented by

NEW YORK CITY CENTER & JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER

Directed by John Doyle; Choreographed by Parker Esse

November 13 – 17

at City Center

Special Gala Benefit Performance on November 14

New York, N.Y., September 27, 2013 – Bernadette Peters  and Cyrille Aimée will star in Stephen Sondheim and Wynton Marsalis’s A BED AND A CHAIR: A New York Love Affair, a new musical event featuring Sondheim’s music arranged and performed by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. This Encores! Special Event, directed by frequent Sondheim collaborator John Doyle, with choreography by Parker Esse and musical supervision by David Loud, was conceived by Peter Gethers, Jack Viertel and John Doyle, and will run for seven performances, November 13 – 17 at City Center.

In addition to Bernadette Peters and Cyrille Aimée, the cast will include Meg Gillentine and Tyler Hanes. Additional casting will be announced shortly.

A BED AND A CHAIR: A New York Love Affair, presented by the combined forces of City Center’s Encores! program and Jazz at Lincoln Center, celebrates love in New York and love of New York. Native Manhattanite Sondheim and adopted citizen Marsalis (originally from New Orleans) will compare musical notes on their shared passion for our city. The program will feature more than two dozen Sondheim compositions, each piece newly re-imagined by the unique musical sensibility of Marsalis and performed by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

A BED AND A CHAIR: A New York Love Affair is the second production of the City Center and Jazz at Lincoln Center producing partnership that began in 2011 with the acclaimed Cotton Club Parade, a celebration of Duke Ellington’s years at the famed Harlem nightclub. The show returned to City Center for a limited run in 2012. Now entitled After Midnight, a Broadway production is scheduled to open on November 3, 2013 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.

City Center’s annual Gala Benefit will take place on Thursday, November 14 and will include a post-performance dinner at the Plaza Hotel.

CAST

Bernadette Peters, a three-time Tony Award winner, has starred in many of Stephen Sondheim’s works, most recently on Broadway in Follies and A Little Night Music.  She was nominated for Tony Awards for her performances as Momma Rose in Gypsy and as Dot in Sunday in the Park with George, and a Drama Desk nomination for her portrayal of the Witch in Into the Woods. Ms. Peters received her first Tony Award for her performance in Song and Dance and her second for her portrayal of Annie Oakley Annie Get Your Gun.  She also received Tony nominations for The Goodbye Girl, Mack and Mabel and On the Town.  She has recorded six solo albums: Sondheim, Etc., Etc.: Bernadette Peters Live at Carnegie Hall (The Rest of It); Bernadette Peters Loves Rodgers & Hammerstein (Grammy Nomination); Sondheim Etc.: Bernadette Peters Live At Carnegie Hall (Grammy Nomination); I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (Grammy Nomination); Bernadette Peters; and Now Playing. Her debut children’s book, Broadway Barks, aptly named after the organization she co-founded with Mary Tyler Moore, made The New York Times Bestseller list shortly after publication and was followed by Stella is a Star. The proceeds from the sale of both books go to Broadway Barks. http://bernadettepeters.com/

Cyrille Aimée , winner of Montreux Jazz Festival’s International Vocal Competition, the Sarah Vaughn International Jazz Vocal Competition and a finalist in the Thelonious Monk Vocal Competition, French/Dominican vocalist Cyrille Aimée is, in the words of Will Friedwald of The Wall Street Journal, “one of the most promising jazz singers of her generation.”  Her major label debut, It’s a Good Day, will be released Spring 2014.http://www.cyrillemusic.com/

Meg Gillentine has appeared on Broadway in Fosse, The Frogs and as Cassandra in Cats. She received The Helen Hayes Award for Best Actress as Lola in Damn Yankees and a Best Actress nomination for Sally Bowles in Cabaret, both at Arena Stage. She has performed regionally at Baltimore Center Stage (Gladys, The Pajama Game) and Reprise (Lola in Damn Yankees, Lois/Bianca in Kiss Me Kate, Ovation Nomination.) She was seen on the PBS special of Fosse performing Big Spender with Ann Reinking, Steam Heat, and Hot Honey Rag. www.meggillentine.com

Tyler Hanes’s regional and touring credits include The Will Rogers’ Follies, The King and I (with Shirley Jones), The Joffrey Ballet’s Cinderella, and Fosse. He has been seen on Broadway in Oklahoma!, Urban Cowboy, The Boy from Oz, The Frogs, Sweet Charity, Hairspray, A Chorus Line and Company. In 2005, he was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance as Ren McCormick in the Chicago production of Footloose. http://tylerhanes.com/

CREATIVE TEAM

Stephen Sondheim wrote music and lyrics for Saturday Night,  A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, The Frogs, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Assassins, Passion and Road Show and lyrics for West Side Story, Gypsy and Do I Hear A Waltz? He composed music for the films Stavisky, Reds and Dick Tracy and for the television production “Evening Primrose.” His collected lyrics with attendant essays have been published in two volumes: Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made A Hat. Mr. Sondheim is on the Council of the Dramatists Guild, the national association of playwrights, composers and lyricists, having served as its President from 1973 to 1981, in which year he founded Young Playwrights Inc. to develop and promote the work of American playwrights ages 18 years and younger. In 2010 the Broadway theater formerly known as Henry Miller’s Theatre was renamed in his honor.

Wynton Marsalis is the Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center.  He is an internationally acclaimed musician, composer, bandleader, educator and a leading advocate of American culture.  Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, he made his recording debut as a leader in 1982, and has recorded more than 70 jazz and classical recordings, which have won him nine GRAMMY® awards.  He is currently represented on Broadway as producer of After Midnight, first produced in 2011 at City Center as an Encores! Special Event entitled Cotton Club Parade.  Marsalis became the first jazz artist to be awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Music, for his oratorio Blood on the Fields, which was commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center.  By creating and performing an expansive range of brilliant new music for quartets to big bands, chamber music ensembles to symphony orchestras, tap dance to ballet, Marsalis has expanded the vocabulary for jazz and created a vital body of work that places him among the world’s finest musicians and composers.  He helped lead the effort to construct Jazz at Lincoln Center’s home – Frederick P. Rose Hall – the first education, performance, and broadcast facility devoted to jazz, which opened in October 2004.  http://wyntonmarsalis.org/

John Doyle (Co- Conceiver, Director) most recently directed the acclaimed London production of The Color Purple. His Broadway credits include Sweeney Todd (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards, Best Director of a Musical); Company (Tony Award, Best Revival) and A Catered Affair, and his off-Broadway credits include Passion at Classic Stage Company, Wings and Road Show. He directed the London productions of Gondoliers, Sweeney Todd and Mack and Mabel.

Parker Esse (Choreographer) recently choreographed Guys and Dolls at the Shaw Festival and Carousel at Goodspeed Opera House (Connecticut Critics Circle Nomination), and is currently choreographing The Most Happy Fella for Goodspeed’s 50^th Anniversary Season.  He choreographed Arena Stage’s Oklahoma! (Helen Hayes Award) and The Music Man (Helen Hayes Nomination) where he will also be choreographing Smokey Joe’s Cafe this Season. He was associate choreographer of the Tony Nominated Broadway production of Finian’s Rainbow and A Tale of Two Cities, as well as Follies at The Kennedy Center. He was associate choreographer of the Encores! productions of Girl Crazy, Finian’s Rainbow and On the Town, and assistant choreographer of Juno and Stairway to Paradise.

Peter Gethers (Co- Conceiver) is a novelist, screenwriter and playwright, has written and produced several television shows and is the president of Random House Studio and an editor-at-large for Random House Inc.  He is the author of a bestselling non-fiction trilogy about his amazing Scottish Fold cat, Norton: The Cat Who Went to Paris, A Cat Abroad and The Cat Who’ll Live Forever.    He is the co-creator and co-producer of the hit off-Broadway show Old Jews Telling Jokes. Mr. Gethers also admits to being one of the founding fathers of Rotisserie League Baseball, which begat the fantasy sports craze.  His new novel, Ask Bob, has recently been published. http://petergethers.com/

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, composed of 15 of the finest jazz soloists and ensemble players today, has been the Jazz at Lincoln Center resident orchestra since 1987. Featured in all aspects of the organization’s programming, the remarkably versatile Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra performs and leads concert and educational events in New York, across the U.S. and around the world and with many of the world’s leading symphony orchestras, ballet troupes, local students and an ever-expanding roster of guest artists. Education is a major part of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s mission and its educational activities are coordinated with concert and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra tour programming.  Under Music Director Wynton Marsalis, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra spends over half of the year on tour and performs a vast repertoire, from rare historic compositions to Jazz at Lincoln Center–commissioned works by guest artists and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra members. JALC.org

Generous support for A BED AND A CHAIR: A New York Love Affair has been provided by Ted and Mary Jo Shen, Helen Lee Henderson, and Perry and Marty Granoff. Additional support has been provided by the Zegar Family Foundation.

The mission of Jazz at Lincoln Center is to entertain, enrich and expand a global community for Jazz through performance, education and advocacy.With the world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and guest artists spanning genres and generations, Jazz at Lincoln Center produces thousands of performance, education, and broadcast events each season in its home in New York City (Frederick P. Rose Hall, “The House of Swing”) and around the world, for people of all ages.  Jazz at Lincoln Center is led by Chairman Robert J. Appel, Managing and Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis, and Executive Director Greg Scholl.  Please visit jalc.org.

JACK VIERTEL (Co-Conceiver, Encores! Artistic Director) has been in charge of Encores! since 2000, overseeing 36 productions and counting. He conceived the upcoming Broadway production of After Midnight, first seen in 2011 as the Encores! Special Event Cotton Club Parade. He is also senior vice president of Jujamcyn Theaters, which owns and operates five Broadway theaters, currently presenting the The Book of Mormon, Jersey Boys and Kinky Boots. He was a producer of the Broadway revival of Gypsy starring Patti LuPone, which was first seen in 2007 at Encores! Summer Stars, and was recently represented on Broadway by Finian’s Rainbow, first seen at Encores! in the spring of 2008. He helped shepherd six of August Wilson’s plays to Broadway and worked on the original Broadway productions of Angels in America, Into the Woods, and M. Butterfly, among others. Mr. Viertel conceived and co-produced the long-running musical revue Smokey Joe’s Café, and conceived the Encores! revue Stairway to Paradise. He served as dramaturg for The Wedding Singer and Hairspray, Creative Consultant on A Christmas Story and A Night With Janis Joplin on Broadway and is the co-author of the musical Time and Again. Mr. Viertel spent two years as dramaturg of the Mark Taper Forum in L.A., and began his work in the theater as a critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.

New York City Center (Arlene Shuler, President & CEO), now in its 70th year, has played a defining role in the cultural life of the city since 1943. It was Manhattan’s first performing arts center, dedicated by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia with a mission to make the best in music, theater and dance accessible to all audiences. Today, City Center is home to many distinguished companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, City Center’s Principal Dance Company, as well as Manhattan Theatre Club and New York City Opera; a roster of renowned national and international visiting artists; and its own critically acclaimed and popular programs. The Tony-honored Encores! musical theater series has been hailed as “one of the very best reasons to be alive in New York.” This summer City Center launched Encores! Off-Center, a new series featuring seminal Off-Broadway musicals filtered through the lens of today’s most innovative artists. Dance has been integral to the theater’s mission from the start, and dance programs, including the annual Fall for Dance Festival, remain central to City Center’s identity. Vital partnerships with arts organizations including Jazz at Lincoln Center and London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre enhance City Center’s programmatic offerings. City Center is dedicated to providing educational opportunities to New York City students and teachers with programs such as Encores! In Schools and the Young People’s Dance Series. Special workshops cater to families, seniors and other groups, while events such as the Fall for Dance DanceTalk series offer learning opportunities to the general public. In October 2011, City Center completed an extensive renovation project to revitalize and modernize its historic theater.

A BED AND A CHAIR: A New York Love Affair will run for seven performances, November 13–17, 2013,  according to the following schedule:  Wednesday, November 13 at 7:30 pm; Thursday, November 14 at 7 pm (Gala performance); Friday, November 15 at 8 pm; Saturday, November 17 at 2 and 8 pm;  and Sunday, November 17 and 2 and 7 pm.

Tickets start at $30 and can be purchased at the New York City Center Box Office (West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues), through CityTix® at 212-581-1212, or online at www.NYCityCenter.org.  City Center is located on 55th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues.

Further information is available at NYCityCenter.org and jalc.org.