Manna Nichols Will Star in My Fair Lady at Arena Stage; Casting Complete

By Adam Hetrick
and Kenneth Jones
12 Sep 2012

Manna Nichols
Manna Nichols

Benedict Campbell and Manna Nichols will co-star as Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, respectively, in the Arena Stage engagement of Molly Smith's My Fair Lady, which arrives in Washington, D.C. this fall, following an acclaimed run at Canada's Shaw Festival in 2011.

Smith first staged this "innovative and fresh reinterpretation" of the classic about a flower girl schooled by a dialectician/grammarian for Shaw Festival audiences in April 2011. Campbell, who portrayed Higgins in that engagement, returns for the Arena Stage mounting along with members of the Shaw creative team.

My Fair Lady, which has a score by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, will run Nov. 2, 2012-Jan. 6, 2013.

The cast also features Nicholas Rodriguez as Freddy Eynsford-Hill, Thomas Adrian Simpson as Colonel Pickering, Sherri L. Edelen as Mrs. Pearce, Catherine Flye as Mrs. Higgins, Benjamin L. Horen as Zoltan Karpathy, James Saito as Alfred Doolittle, Rayanne Gonzales as Mrs. Eynsford-Hill, Kurt Boehm as Jamie and Ronald Duncan as Harry.

The company is completed by Bev Appleton, Lucia Daisog, Dean Andre de Luna, Erin Driscoll, Jennifer Irons, Adam Jepsen, Robert Mintz, Jesse Palmer, Jobari Parker-Namdar, Joe Peck, Sade Simmons, Kim Willes and Hannah Willman, with swings Jessica Hartman and Victor J. Wisehart.

The production team includes costume designer Judith Bowden, lighting designer Jock Munro, projection designer Adam Larsen and sound designer John Lott. My Fair Lady has musical direction by Paul Sportelli and choreography by Daniel Pelzig.

The Arena Stage production will feature new scenic design by Donald Eastman.

For tickets and information, visit arenastage.org.