The American Songbook Association’s second annual gala, To Life! Celebrating Sheldon Harnick, will be presented September 16 at 7:30 PM at Pershing Square Signature Center’s Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre (480 West 42nd Street).

Klea Blackhurt will host the evening, which will feature performances by Kate Baldwin, Laura Benanti, Robert Cuccioli, Ed Dixon, Adam Heller, Rebecca Luker, Brad Oscar, Melanie Moore, Samantha Massell, Alan Schmuckler, Jeff Harnar and Alex Rybeck, Kissy Simmons, and Sidney Myer.

Music director and pianist Eugene Gwozdz will lead a quartet featuring Danny Bacher on reeds, Tom Hubbard on bass, and Mark McLean on drums.

The evening will also feature the presentation of the 2019 ASA Lifetime Achievement Award to Harnick, the co-creator of Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello!, She Loves Me, and more.

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ASA Executive Director Marilyn Lester said in a statement, “Our annual gala is both a major fundraiser and a key method to spotlight the great treasures of American popular music. The core of our mission is to preserve and foster this immense cultural gift of the great songwriters and their work. We are thrilled that Mr. Harnick, whose songs have graced stages both in New York and around the world, is helping us raise money for our educational outreach and other methods of promoting the grand tradition of extraordinary songwriting and the joy it spreads.”

Visit AmericanSongbookAssociation.org.

Benanti, Luker, and more have been special guest performers on Playbill Travel’s Broadway on the High Seas cruises. Cabins are now on sale for Broadway in the Great Northwest, Playbill Travel’s first domestic cruise featuring Kate Baldwin, Tedd Firth, Christopher Fitzgerald, Aaron Lazar, and Faith Prince (April 26–May 4, 2020), and for Broadway on the Mediterranean (August 31–September 7, 2020), featuring Audra McDonald, Will Swenson, Gavin Creel, Caissie Levy and Lindsay Mendez, and for Broadway on the Nile (December 27, 2020–January 7, 2021), with performers soon to be announced. To book a suite or stateroom, call Playbill Travel at 866-455-6789 or visit PlaybillTravel.com.