Stephen Sondheim's award-winning musical Pacific Overtures will be part of the upcoming Lincoln Center Festival 2002. The annual three-week July event will feature an all-Japanese production of the 1976 musical from the New National Theatre, Tokyo.
Pacific Overtures is scheduled to play five performances at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, July 9-13. Tickets go on sale May 1 (for buyers of multiple Festival events) and June 10 for those only interested in the Sondheim presentation. Tickets can be purchased through CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500.
Amon Miyamoto will direct an all-Japanese company in the musical, which debuted at Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre on January 11, 1976, and ran for 193 performances. This is the same production of Pacific Overtures that will also play the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theatre Sept. 3-Sept. 8. It will be sung in Japanese, with English surtitles.
Originally directed by Hal Prince, the work features a book by John Weidman and additional material by Hugh Wheeler. Pacific Overtures was voted Best Musical by the New York Drama Critics' Circle and also earned nine Tony nominations, winning two: Best Costume Design (Florence Klotz) and Best Scenic Design (Boris Aronson).
Sondheim's score for Pacific Overtures includes "The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea," "There Is No Other Way," "Four Black Dragons," "Chrysanthemum Tea," "Poems," "Welcome to Kanagawa," "Someone in a Tree," "Lion Dance," "Please Hello," "A Bowler Hat," "Pretty Lady" and "Next." The annual Lincoln Center Festival comprises theatre, dance and opera productions, ranging from traditional presentations to performance-art pieces. The Festival began in 1996, and this year's offerings — a complete itinerary will be announced shortly — also include a music-theatre piece from Iran entitled Ta'ziyeh.
The 72-year-old Sondheim will be celebrated this summer in Washington, D.C., with productions of six of his classic musicals—Company, A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park With George, Merrily We Roll Along, Passion and Sweeney Todd.
—By Andrew Gans
