New York City Center’s Encores!, which recently announced that its acclaimed production of Into The Woods is planning a Broadway transfer, has set revivals of The Light in the Piazza, Dear World and Oliver! for its 2023 season.
Encores!, which presents a mix of classic and rarely performed Broadway musicals in enhanced concert form, will kick off the 2023 season on February 1 with The Light in the Piazza starring Ruthie Ann Miles (The King & I) and directed by Chay Yew. The musical, which premiered in 2005, features a book by Craig Lucas and music and lyrics by Adam Guettel based on the 1960 novella by Elizabeth Spencer, and follows an American mother and daughter living in the shadow of a tragic accident who find joy while on vacation in 1950s Florence.
Encores! describes the upcoming production, which will run through Feb. 5, as “a deeply personal exploration of the material, transmuting the musical’s drama of encounter across barriers of language, culture, and ability into something as essential as it is revelatory.”
Dear World (March 15 – 19, 2023) will star two-time Tony winner Donna Murphy with direction and choreography by Josh Rhodes. The musical, with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman and book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, is based on Jean Giraudoux’s The Madwoman of Chaillot as adapted by Maurice Valency, and premiered in 1969. Murphy will play “Herman’s giddy, garish heroine Countess Aurelia” to perform songs including “I Don’t Want to Know,” “Kiss Her Now,” and “Each Tomorrow Morning.”
As described by Encores!, Dear World is “a true hidden gem of the Broadway canon” that “blends Herman’s trademark optimism with a dash of social critique and a soupçon of ecological urgency: a perfect blend for our times.”
The Encores! production of Lionel Bart’s Oliver!, the 1960 musical based on Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, will be directed by Encores! artistic director Lear deBessonet and run from May 3-14, 2023, by special arrangement with Cameron Mackintosh. The original Oliver! was nominated for 10 Tony Awards, and the 1968 film adaptation won six Oscars. Musical numbers include such classics as “Food, Glorious Food,” “As Long As He Needs Me” and “Consider Yourself.”
Casting for Oliver! was not announced.