The event will take place at Guastavino's at 409 E. 59th Street and feature performances by LaChanze (The Color Purple, and PH's Once on This Island, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin and the upcoming Inked Baby), B.D. Wong (M. Butterfly, "Law & Order: SVU") and Tony Award nominee Jonathan Groff (Spring Awakening, Hair, and PH's A Prayer for My Enemy), plus newly-added Darius de Haas (Rent, Bubbly Black Girl…), Dashiell Eaves (PH's James Joyce's The Dead), Mary Faber (Avenue Q, PH's Saved), Eamon Foley (13, Everyday Rapture), Tony nominee Michael McElroy (Deaf West's Big River), Janet Metz (Falsettoland), Cass Morgan (Mary Poppins, Violet), Julia Murney (Saved, Wicked) and Chip Zien (Into the Woods and PH's Falsettos trilogy).
Nine of the 11 performers are alumni of PH productions. Wong recently starred in the McCarter Theater production of Herringbone, a musical that premiered at Playwrights Horizons in 1982.
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"I can see so far…", according to PH, "is the final, haunting lyric from the musical Floyd Collins by Adam Guettel and Tina Landau. It also captures the essence of the theatre company's institutional mission of discovering, developing and producing the new work of American playwrights and musical theatre composers."
Playwrights Horizons produced its first musical In Trousers by then-newcomer William Finn in 1979, beginning a three decade-long commitment to the American musical (Grey Gardens, James Joyce's The Dead, Assassins and Sunday in the Park with George.) Finn and writer-director James Lapine will be honorary artistic co-chairs of the evening.
Playwrights Horizons' recently appointed director of musical theatre, Kent Nicholson, will direct the entertainment portion of the evening. Nicholson recently joined the staff following serving as director of new works for TheatreWorks in California.
Cocktails and a silent auction will begin at 6 PM, followed by dinner at 7:45 PM and the evening's entertainment.
The entertainment portion of "I can see so far…" will feature performances from the Playwrights Horizons musicals Grey Gardens, Falsettoland, Once on This Island, Violet, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, Herringbone and a sneak peak at next season's The Burnt Part Boys.
Ticket prices for the Gala Benefit start at $800 and can be reserved by calling Alyssa Biber at (212) 564-1235, ext. 3146. For more information visit www.playwrightshorizons.org.
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Playwrights Horizons is under the leadership of artistic director Tim Sanford and managing director Leslie Marcus. It's a "writer's theatre dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers and lyricists, and to the production of their new work."
