George S. Irving, Max von Essen, Phyllis Sommerville and Ed Dixon have joined the cast of My Fair Lady, scheduled to play the Paper Mill: The State Theatre of New Jersey this June.
The Lerner and Loewe musical, which stars previously announced Glory Crampton as Eliza Doolittle and Paul Schoeffler as Henry Higgins, will play June 5 through July 21 at the New Jersey theatre. Mounted in conjunction with Theatre Under the Stars (Houston), the Ordway Theatre of St. Paul, the 5th Avenue Theatre (Seattle), Dallas Summer Musicals and Theatre of the Stars (Atlanta), this will be the last tri-state area production of the musical prior to the Cameron Mackintosh-produced Broadway revival. It will also mark Robert Johanson's final directing project as Artistic Director of the theatre.
Irving, a theatre veteran who starred on Broadway in the original company of Oklahoma! as well as the casts of Irma La Douce, Bells Are Ringing and Me and My Girl, will play Colonel Pickering in the Paper Mill production. Von Essen, who made his Broadway debut in the recent revival of Jesus Christ Superstar and his Off-Broadway debut in The Fantasticks, will star as Freddy Eynsford-Hill. Ed Dixon, whose New York theatre credits include The Iceman Cometh, Les Misérables, Cyrano and The Scarlet Pimpernel, is set to play Alfred Doolittle, and Phyllis Sommerville, who was last seen in The Spitfire Grill, will portray Mrs. Higgins.
The creative team comprises the aforementioned Johanson as director plus Gregory A. Poplyk (costumes), Michael Anania (sets) and Michael Lichtefeld (choreography).
My Fair Lady is based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and features book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The original Broadway production opened on March 15, 1956, ran for over six years and won nine Tony Awards, including one for Best Musical. The score contains such Broadway classics as "I Could Have Danced All Night," "On the Street Where You Live," "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" and "Get Me to the Church on Time." Paper Mill: State Theatre of New Jersey is located on Brookside Drive in Millburn, NJ. Tickets are available by calling the theatre's box office at (973) 376-4343. For more information, go to www.papermill.org —By Andrew Gans
