Laura Benanti and Andrew Lippa to Star in the World Premiere of Lippa’s Musical I Am Harvey Milk

Andrew Lippa and Tony and Broadway.com Audience Choice Award winner Laura Benanti will star in the world premiere presentation of Lippa’s latest work I Am Harvey Milk. Directed by Noah Himmelstein, the show will play San Francisco's Nourse Auditorium on June 27 and 28, and features the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus accompanied by the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony.

Part choral work, part theater piece I Am Harvey Milk weaves the story of Harvey Milk’s life – from boyhood to his rise as the first openly gay man to hold public office in California to his assassination. I Am Harvey Milk includes orchestrations by August Eriksmoen and will be conducted by Dr. Timothy Seelig.

Lippa received a Tony nomination for creating the score to the Broadway musical The Addams Family. His additional credits include The Wild Party, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, The Farnsworth Invention, john & jen and the upcoming Main Stem musical Big Fish.

Benanti is the first actress in history to win a Tony Award for the role of Gypsy Rose Lee in the musical Gypsy. Her additional Broadway credits include The Sound of Music, Swing!, Into the Woods, Nine, The Wedding Singer, In the Next Room (Broadway.com Audience Choice Award for Favorite Leading Actress in a Broadway Play) and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (for which she received an additional Tony nomination). Her TV credits include Go On, The Big C, The Playboy Club, Eli Stone and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

I Am Harvey Milk was commissioned by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, along with Atlanta Gay Men's Chorus, Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles, Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus, Vancouver Men's Chorus, and Heartland Men's Chorus. The production is presented as part of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus 35th Anniversary Celebration concert, “Harvey Milk 2013.”