Shaddow, Hearn, Reed, Applegate Cast in Encores! Fanny

By Andrew Gans
12 Jan 2010

Elena Shaddow
Elena Shaddow
Photo by Kristen Hoebermann

Elena Shaddow will star in the City Center Encores! production of the Harold Rome musical Fanny.

Directed by Marc Bruni and choreographed by Lorin Latarro, the limited engagement will play the famed New York venue Feb. 4-7.

Shaddow will be joined onstage by Fred Applegate as Panisse, Tony Award winner George Hearn as Cesar, David Patrick Kelly as The Admiral, Tony Award winner Rondi Reed as Honorine, Michael McCormick as Escartifique, James Snyder as Marius and Ted Sutherland as Cesario.

Fanny features music and lyrics by Harold Rome and book by S.N. Behrman and Joshua Logan.

Fanny will be the 50th Encores! production presented by City Center since 1994. The season will conclude with Anyone Can Whistle, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents' 1964 musical, starting April 8.

Fanny (1954), based on Marcel Pagnol's trilogy "Marius," "Fanny" and "Cesar," is set in Marseille. The love story is "a tale of a young girl's passion for a young man so in love with the sea that he leaves her, little realizing that she is pregnant with his child. Her marriage of convenience to a wealthy older man desperate to have an heir is complicated by the sailor's return years later." Joshua Logan and S.N. Behrman penned the book, and Harold Rome wrote music and lyrics — flirting with operatic heights (including the title song). The original production starred Florence Henderson, Ezio Pinza and Walter Slezak (who won a Tony award for Best Actor in a Musical).

Tickets to the Encores! season are available at the New York City Center Box Office (W. 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues), through CityTix at (212) 581-1212, or online at www.nycitycenter.org.

Tickets for the Orchestra, Grand Tier and Mid-Mezzanine tickets are $95; tickets for the Rear Mezzanine and Front Gallery are $50; tickets for the Rear Gallery are $25.