Love Is Sweeping the Country: Encores! Of Thee I Sing, With Victor Garber, Plays City Center May 11-15

By Robert Simonson
11 May 2006

Victor Garber in Of Thee I Sing.
Victor Garber in Of Thee I Sing.
Photo by Joan Marcus

Victor Garber stars as National Party candidate for President of the United States John P. Wintergreen in the New York City Center Encores! staging of George and Ira Gershwin's Of Thee I Sing, running May 11-15.

Jenny Powers, seen as Meg in Little Women, is Diana Devereaux, the jilted and scheming "Miss White House" contest winner who loses out to Mary Turner (known for baking corn muffins), played by Jennifer Laura Thompson (Urinetown). Winner of the contest becomes First Lady.

Also starring is Tony-winner Jefferson Mays (I Am My Own Wife) as the feckless Vice President, Alexander Throttlebottom.

John Rando directs, with music direction by Paul Gemignani.

The cast also includes Jonathan Freeman (Senator Lyons), Erick Devine (Senator Jones), Michael Mulheren (Fulton), Lewis J. Stadlen (Lippman), David Pittu (the French Ambassador), Wayne Duvall (Gilhoohey), Jeffry Denman (Sam Jenkins) as well as David Baum, Mara Davi, Sara Edwards, Eric Michael Gillett, Blythe Gruda, Drew Humphrey, Holly Holcomb, Todd A. Horman, Fred Inkley, Cara Kjellman, Todd Lattimore, Mark Ledbetter, Jay Lusteck, Ian Knauer, Raymond Jaramillo McLeod, Marcus Nance, Nina Negri, Shannon O'Bryan, Greg Stone, Kelly Sullivan, Jacqueline Thompson and Anna White.

Of Thee I Sing, with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, and book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, opened on Broadway in 1931, and was the first Broadway musical to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play opens in an election year, as the National Party campaigns for their presidential nominee, John P. Wintergreen, running on a platform based on love. The score includes "Love Is Sweeping the Country," "Who Cares" and "Of Thee I Sing (Baby)."

For more information, visit www.citycenter.org.