By Andrew Gans
18 Mar 2003

The Reprise! mounting of She Loves Me, which plays UCLA's Freud Playhouse, begins performances March 18.

The official press opening of the musical is scheduled for the following night, March 19, and the show will run through March 30. As previously announced on Playbill On-Line, Rebecca Luker, Damon Kirsche, Kaitlin Hopkins and Scott Waara head the cast of the Harnick and Bock musical. The foursome will be joined onstage by Larry Cedar, Deven May, Lenny Wolpe, Corey Greenan, Richard Israel, Christa Jackson, Caryn Kaplan, Perry Lambert, Clacy Miller, James Patric Moran and Victor Ortega. She Loves Me features direction by Gordon Hunt with choreography by Dan Mojica. Gerald Sternbach will serve as the show's musical director.

She Loves Me boasts a book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick. The classic score includes such tunes as "Will He Like Me?," "Tonight at Eight," "Dear Friend," "Vanilla Ice Cream" and "She Loves Me."

The original She Loves Me production opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre April 23, 1963, playing 302 performances before closing Jan. 11, 1964. Directed by Harold Prince — with musical staging by Carol Haney — the cast included Barbara Baxley, Jack Cassidy, Barbara Cook, Daniel Massey, Ludwig Donath, Nathaniel Frey and Ralph Williams. The 1993 revival for the Roundabout Theatre Company began life at the Criterion Center/Stage Right before transferring to the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Directed by Scott Ellis with musical staging by Rob Marshall, the cast included Jonathan Freeman, Boyd Gaines, Brad Kane, Judy Kuhn, Sally Mayes, Howard McGillin, Lee Wilkof and Louis Zorich.

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Rebecca Luker was most recently on The Great White Way in the acclaimed revival of Meredith Willson's The Music Man, garnering Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for her role as Marian. This past summer she starred opposite Michael Cerveris as Clara in the Kennedy Center production of Stephen Sondheim's Passion, and her other theatrical credits include roles in The Sound of Music, Show Boat, The Secret Garden and The Phantom of the Opera.

She Loves Me will play UCLA's Freud Playhouse, located within Macgowan Hall. Tickets are available by calling (310) 825-2101. Reprise! is on the web at http://www.reprise.org.