Becky Ann Baker, John Bucchino, Stephen Buntrock, Walter Charles, Raul Esparza, Mia Farrow, Merwin Foard, Alexander Gemignani, Annie Golden, Blake Hammond, Neil Patrick Harris, Anne Hathaway, Brian d'Arcy James, Kenneth Krugman, Jeffrey Kuhn, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Ann Morrison, Cynthia Nixon, Hugh Panaro and Brandon Wardell have all signed on for the event.
They join the previously announced Michael Cerveris, Barbara Cook, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Jason Danieley, John Dossett, Harvey Evans, Dame Edna Everage, Harvey Fierstein, Whoopi Goldberg, George Hearn, Judy Kuhn, Rebecca Luker, Patti Lupone, Marin Mazzie, Audra McDonald, Debra Monk, Michele Pawk, Bernadette Peters, Kurt Peterson, David Hyde Pierce, Tonya Pinkins, Lonny Price, Alice Ripley, Chita Rivera, Marti Rolph, Virginia Sandifur, Jim Walton and B.D. Wong. Also presenting the March 21 event are Young Playwrights Inc. and producers Richard Maltby, Jr., Kevin Stites and Sheri M. Goldhirsch. Maltby will direct. All proceeds will benefit Young Playwrights Inc., an organization founded by Stephen Sondheim in 1981.
The benefit will take place at Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre at 7:30 PM. Sondheim's actual birthday, March 22, falls on the next day. (He shares that birth date — in a different year — with British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.)
Children and Art will also feature appearances from members of the original casts of Company, Follies and Merrily We Roll Along, plus a 35-piece orchestra, the 100-voice Broadway Star Chorus and the 60-voice Young People's Chorus of New York.
The mission of Young Playwrights Inc. is to "nurture playwrights aged 18 or younger through development and presentation of their work, to promote the arts as a part of basic part of education by facilitating the integration of playwriting into the curriculum, to develop new work for the theatre, and to serve as an advocate for young people regardless of ethnicity, gender, physical ability, sexual orientation or economic status." Tickets are scaled from $500-$5,000 and are now available by calling Young Playwrights Inc. at (212) 594-5440. Tickets at the $1,500 level and above include an exclusive post-show dinner with Stephen Sondheim at the Four Seasons (99 East 52nd Street). Balcony tickets are available at $150 and $250. Sponsorship opportunities are also available. For more information visit www.sondheim75.com.
