The benefit will honor Raymond A. Lamontagne, and will be co-chaired by Bobbie Frankfort, Sherry R. Jacobs, Patricia W. Lovejoy, and Frederic M. Seegal. Lamontagne—chairman of the board of City Center and chairman of Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Camps for children with cancer and other serious blood diseases—will be presented with the Fiorello H. LaGuardia Award, given for distinguished service to New York City and to City Center, by Newman.
The May 15 benefit will begin at 6 PM with cocktails, followed by a performance of the New York City Center Encores! production of George and Ira Gershwin's Of Thee I Sing at 7 PM. Dinner will be held in the City Center Atrium at 9 PM.
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As previously announced, the Tony-winner Jefferson Mays (I Am My Own Wife) and Urinetown and Wicked star Jennifer Laura Thompson will star alongside Victor Garber in Of Thee I Sing.
Garber, a Broadway veteran and star of the television series "Alias," will play John P. Wintergreen, the National Party's candidate for President of the United States, in the political satire. Mays will play Vice President Throttlebottom, and Jennifer Laura Thompson is Mary Turner. John Rando directs, with music direction by Paul Gemignani. Dates are May 11-15.
The cast also includes Jonathan Freeman (Senator Lyons), Erick Devine (Senator Jones), Michael Mulheren (Fulton), Lewis J. Stadlen (Lippman), David Pittu (the French Ambassador), Wayne Duvall (Gilhoohey), Jeffry Denman (Sam Jenkins) as well as Eric Michael Gillett, Holly Holcomb, Todd A. Horman, Fred Inkley, Jay Lusteck, Ian Knauer, Raymond Jaramillo McLeod, Marcus Nance, Nina Negri, Greg Stone and Jacqueline Thompson. The role of Diana Devereaux is still to be cast.
Of Thee I Sing, with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, and book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, opened on Broadway in 1931, and was the first Broadway musical to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play opens in an election year, as the National Party campaigns for their presidential nominee, John P. Wintergreen, running on a platform based on love. The score includes "Love Is Sweeping the Country," "Who Cares" and "Of Thee I Sing (Baby)."
For more information, visit www.citycenter.org.
