Tony Winner John Larroquette, Santino Fontana & More Set for 1776 at City Center Encores!

Tony and Emmy winner John Larroquette, Tony nominee Santino Fontana and John Behlmann will appear in the City Center Encores! presentation of 1776 this spring. The three star as Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, respectively. Also on board are Nikki Renée Daniels, Christianne Noll, Bryce Pinkham, André De Shields, Alexander Gemignani and more.

Performances are set for March 30 through April 3. The production will be directed by Garry Hynes and feature choreography by Chris Bailey.

Larroquette won four Emmy Awards for Night Court and one for his guest role on The Practice. He won a Tony for his Broadway debut in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and went on to star in The Best Man. Fontana can currently be seen on the CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. He most recently appeared on Broadway in Act One and earned a Tony nod for Cinderella. Behlmann made his Broadway debut in Journey’s End and has also appeared in Significant Other, The 39 Steps and Wild Animals You Should Know off-Broadway.

Daniels, who will play Martha Jefferson, currently stars as Nabulungi in The Book of Mormon; her additional credits include Porgy and Bess, Les Mierables and Promises, Promises. Noll, a Tony nominee for Ragtime, will play Abigail Adams. Pinkham earned a Tony nomination for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder and also recently appeared in The Heidi Chronicles; he takes on the role of John Dickinson. De Shields, who is set to play Stephen Hopkins, earned Tony nominations for Play On! and The Full Monty. Gemignani’s Broadway credits include Violet, Chicago, Sweeney Todd and Les Miesrables; he will play Edward Rutledge. Sykes, who will portray Richard Henry Lee, is an operatic baritone who has sung at the Apollo, the Met and more; he received a Grammy nomination for his recording of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass.

The staging will also feature Terence Archie, Larry Bull, Macintyre Dixon, John Hickok, John Hillner, Kevin Ligon, John-Michael Lyles, Laird Mackintosh, Michael McCormick, Michael Medeiros, Wayne Pretlow, Tom Alan Robbins, Robert Sella, Ric Stoneback, Vishal Vaidya, Nicholas Ward and Jacob Keith Watson.

1776 is set in the halls of Congress, as the founding fathers battle out the question of independence and draft the declaration that will sever their ties to England and give birth to a new nation. The musical features music and lyrics by Edwards and a book by Peter Stone. The original production opened on March 16, 1969 at the 46th Street Theatre and won the Tony Award that year for Best Musical.