Garber and Hines are the latest additions to the star-studded company of the Stephen Sondheim-James Goldman musical, which will be directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw. Playbill.com has learned that Garber will play Benjamin Stone with Hines as Hattie Walker.
The twosome join the previously announced Victoria Clark as Sally Durant Plummer, Donna Murphy as Phyllis Stone, Michael McGrath as Buddy Plummer, Philip Bosco as Dimitri Weismann, Robert Fitch as Theodore Whitman, Christine Baranski as Carlotta Campion, Lucine Amara as Heidi Schiller, Joanne Worley as Stella Deems, Gerry Vichi as Max Deems, Arthur Rubin as Roscoe, Yvonne Constant as Solange, Leena Chopra as Young Heidi, Dorothy Stanley as Dee Dee West and Diane J. Findlay as Sandra Cranes.
Eric Stern will be the guest music director for Follies, which kicks off the 2007 season of Encores! John Lee Beatty will be the scenic consultant.
Victor Garber received Tony nominations for his performances in Damn Yankees, Lend Me a Tenor, Deathtrap and Little Me. His other Broadway credits include Arcadia, Noises Off and Sweeney Todd. His numerous screen credits include "Titanic," "The First Wives Club," "Sleepless in Seattle," "Legally Blonde," "Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows," "Alias" and "Justice." Garber was previously seen in the Encores! production of Of Thee I Sing.
Mimi Hines first burst onto the entertainment scene in 1958 when she and her partner, the late Phil Ford, performed on Jack Paar's "The Tonight Show." After headlining in top clubs around the country, Hines made her Broadway debut when she replaced Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, performing the lead role for 18 months. Since that time she has starred in several national tours, recorded numerous albums, and returned to Broadway as Miss Lynch in the Tommy Tune production of Grease!. Hines was also seen in the York Theatre Company's production of 70, Girls, 70, part of its "Musicals in Mufti" series. Her recordings are numerous. Follies, with songs by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Goldman, was originally directed by Harold Prince on Broadway in 1971. Since then, it has received a legendary star-filled concert at Lincoln Center in 1985, a Roundabout revival on Broadway directed by Matthew Warchus in 2001, and numerous regional mountings, including a Paper Mill Playhouse engagement that featured Donna McKechnie and the late Ann Miller. The classic Sondheim score also boasts such tunes as "I'm Still Here," "Broadway Baby," "Could I Leave You?," "Waiting for the Girls Upstairs" and "The Road You Didn't Take."
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A full-scale restoration of Face the Music, the 1932 Irving Berlin Moss Hart musical, will follow Follies, playing March 29-April 1 at City Center. Originally directed by George S. Kaufman, Face the Music concerns "a desperate producer in New York trying to raise the money for his latest revue, Rhinestones of '32." The musical features such Berlin tunes as "Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee" and "Soft Lights and Sweet Music." Rob Fisher will be the musical director for the second Encores! offering.
The season will conclude with Stairway to Paradise, an original revue created specially for the Encores! series. Playing May 10-14, the production, according to press notes, will be "a celebration of the very best material from a half century of Broadway revues, and will include numbers and sketches from Florenz Ziegfeld's shows and other legendary musicals and revues of the era." Paul Gemignani will be the musical director for this production as well.
Tickets for the upcoming season are available by visiting the New York City Center box office, which is located on West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues; by calling (212) 581-1212; or by logging on to www.nycitycenter.org. Tickets are priced $25, $50, $90 and $95.
