Rob McClure & Jennifer Bowles to Star in Irma La Douce at Encores!

Jennifer Bowles (Matilda) will play the title role opposite Tony nominee Rob McClure (Chaplin) in a New York City Center Encores! production of Irma La Douce. With music by Marguerite Monnot and English book and lyrics by Julian More, David Heneker and Monty Norman, the show is adapted from original book and lyrics by Alexandre Breffort. The final production of the 2014 Encores! season, Irma La Douce will run for seven performances, May 7 through May 11.

Irma La Douce will be the first musical at Encores! not written on American soil. The show tells the tale of a Parisian lady of the evening (Bowles) and the law student (McClure) who falls in love with her. Directed by John Doyle and choreographed by Chase Brock, Irma La Douce will also feature Sam Bolen, Allan Corduner, Ben Crawford, Stephen DeRosa, Ken Krugman, Zachary James and Chris Sullivan with Kurt Froman, Joseph Medeiros, Joseph Simeone and Manuel Stark.

After a three-year run in Paris, an English-language version of Irma La Douce, directed by Peter Brook, appeared in London and then on Broadway, where it opened at the Plymouth Theatre on September 29, 1960 and ran for 524 performances. The score produced one standard, “Our Language of Love,” and also features “The Valse Millieu” and “Dis Donc.”