Theater News

Garber, Mays, Stadlen, Thompson to Headline Of Thee I Sing for Encores!

Victor Garber
(Photo © Joseph Marzullo)
Victor Garber
(Photo © Joseph Marzullo)

Victor Garber, Jefferson Mays, Jennifer Laura Thompson, and Lewis J. Stadlen will headline the City Center Encores! production of the George and Ira Gershwin musical Of Thee I Sing, May 11-15. The show will be directed by John Rando, with choreography by Randy Skinner and musical direction by Paul Gemignani.

David Ives will do the concert adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, which has a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie T. Ryskind. The plot concerns John P. Wintergreen (Garber), who is running for the U.S. presidency on a platform based on love. Among the score’s highlights are “Love Is Sweeping the Country” and “Who Cares?”

The cast of the Encores! production also includes Jonathan Freeman, Erick Devine, Michael Mulheren, David Pittu, Wayne Duvall, and Jeffry Denman. The ensemble consists of Eric Michael Gillett, Holly Holcomb, Todd A. Horman, Fred Inkley, Jay Lusteck, Ian Knauer, Raymond Jaramillo McLeod, Marcus Nance, Nina Negri, Greg Stone, and Jacqueline Thompson. The production team includes John Lee Beatty (scenic consultant), Toni-Leslie James (costume consultant), Paul Miller (lighting design), and Dan Moses Schreier (sound design).

Garber, a four-time Tony Award nominee for Damn Yankees, Lend Me a Tenor, Deathtrap and Little Me, also appeared in the original productions of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd and Assassins. He currently plays Jack Bristow on the ABC-TV series Alias.

Mays, who will play Alexander Throtttlebottom, won a Tony for his work in I Am My Own Wife. Thompson, who will play Mary Turner, received a Tony nomination for her performance in Urinetown and has also starred on Broadway in Wicked and Footloose. Stadlen, who will play Louis Lippman, is a two-time Tony nominee for Candide and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; among his many other Broadway credits are Minnie’s Boys, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and The Producers. The role of Diana Deveraux in the Encores! production is yet to be cast.