Directed by Tony winner Garry Hynes with music direction by Eric Stern and musical staging by Warren Carlyle, Juno will play City Center March 27-30, 2008. The production will boast the original orchestrations penned by Blitzstein, Hershey Kay and Robert Russell Bennett.
Juno is based on Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock and features a score by Blitzstein and a book by Stein. The musical opened at Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre on March 9, 1959. The cast featured Shirley Booth and Melvyn Douglas.
Juno, according to press notes, "chronicles the disintegration of an Irish family in Dublin in the early 1920s during the confrontation between the Irish Republican Army and the British. Juno Boyle [Victoria Clark] is the hardworking matriarch who struggles heroically to hold her family together in the face of war, betrayal, and her husband's drinking." Songs include "I Wish It So," "We're Alive" and "One Kind World."
Victoria Clark received a 2005 Tony Award for her performance in The Light in the Piazza. Her other Broadway credits include Cabaret, Urinetown, Titanic, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Guys and Dolls and A Grand Night for Singing. Among Clark's screen credits are "Cradle Will Rock," "Law & Order," "Law & Order: SVU" and "Sweeney Todd in Concert." As a director, she helmed the 92nd Street Y's "Lyrics & Lyricists" series Serenade in Blue: The Mack Gordon Song Cavalcade. PS Classics released Clark's debut solo recording, "Fifteen Seconds of Grace," Nov. 6. The actress will also be seen in M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening," which is due in movie theatres in June 2008.
Show times are March 27 and 28 at 8 PM, March 29 at 2 and 8 PM and March 30 at 6:30 PM. City Center is located in Manhattan at West 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Tickets are available by calling (212) 581-1212 or by visiting www.nycitycenter.org.
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The Encores! season will kick off with Applause (Feb. 7-10, 2008) starring Tony winner Christine Ebersole; following Juno will be No, No, Nanette (May 8-12) starring Mara Davi, Sandy Duncan, Beth Leavel, Rosie O'Donnell, Shonn Wiley and Fred Willard.