The 7 PM performance at the Broadhurst Theatre will feature Kathy Bates, Dixie Carter, Edie Falco, Jessica Lange, Maria Tucci and Leslie Uggams as the famed opera star. (The previously announced Chita Rivera and Swoosie Kurtz will be unable to participate in the performance.)
Leonard Foglia, who directed the original Broadway production, will helm the staged reading, which will also feature Jay Hunter Morris and David Loud reprising their Broadway roles as, respectively, Tony and Manny. Sweeney Todd's Donna Lynne Champlin will play Sophie with Sherry Boone as Sharon, the role created by Tony winner Audra McDonald.
Playwright McNally as well as theatre veteran and four-time Tony Award winner Zoe Caldwell, who created the role of Maria Callas on Broadway, will be the evening's guests of honor.
A gala supper at the Marriott Marquis will follow the Master Class performance, and proceeds from the evening will benefit the Metropolitan Opera Guild's education programs, which bring opera and musical theatre to schools throughout the United States. The Shubert Organization's Gerald Schoenfeld and Philip J. Smith, who are allowing the Guild to use the Broadhurst Theatre for the one-night benefit, are the Honorary Chairman of the evening.
Terrence McNally's Master Class concerns the now-legendary classes that the late Maria Callas gave at the Juilliard School in 1971. The Broadway production cast Caldwell, who received a Tony Award for her critically acclaimed performance, in the role of Callas. Others who followed her into the demanding part included Evita's Patti LuPone and "Designing Women" star Dixie Carter. The play opened at Broadway's Golden Theatre on Nov. 5, 1995, playing 598 performances before closing June 29, 1997. McNally's work received the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for Best Play. Performance-only tickets are priced $85 and $250. Gala tickets are priced $750 and $1,000. For more information or to purchase tickets call (212) 769-7009 or visit www.metguild.org.
The Broadhurst Theatre is located in Manhattan at 235 West 44th Street.
