Tony Winners Laura Benanti & Celia Keenan-Bolger to Host New 42 Virtual Benefit Gala

Tony winners Laura Benanti and Celia Keenan-Bolger are set to host the New 42 Virtual Gala on June 1 at 5:30PM ET. The event will be available to view here and aims to raise critical funds for the performing arts engagement and education programs of New 42 and its signature projects, New 42 Studios and New Victory Theater, which recently launched New Victory Arts Breaks, a series of digital performing arts curriculum for families and teachers to adapt to kids’ learning spaces at home.

Honoring Marc Spilker with the Marian Heiskell Award, the virtual gala will include appearances by New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Broadway stars John Lithgow, Raúl Esparza, Elizabeth Stanley, Rebecca Taichman and Sonya Tayeh, as well as performances by Erika Henningsen, Adrianna Hicks, Emmy Raver-Lampman and Solea Pfeiffer. The New 42 Gala is directed by Jonathan Bernstein with music direction by Mary-Mitchell Campbell.

“The New 42 Gala is for all the artists who rehearse and develop work with us, the teachers and students who learn alongside us, the families who choose us for their child’s first theatrical experience and for anyone who wants to come together for a celebration of New York’s great artistic community,” said New 42 President and CEO Russell Granet in a statement.

Benanti is a Tony winner for Gypsy. Her other Broadway credits include Tony-nominated turns in She Loves Me, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Swing! and Into the Woods as well as My Fair Lady, Meteor Shower, The Wedding Singer, Nine, The Sound of Music and In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play. Keenan-Bolger won a 2019 Tony Award for her performance in To Kill a Mockingbird. Her Broadway credits also inlcude Tony-nominated turns in The Glass Menagerie, Peter and the Starcatcher and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

The gala co-chairs include Orin Kramer, Jonathan Sobel, Sarah Long Solomon and David Solomon, Gerri and Andy Sommers and George Weiss. The vice chairs are Betsy and Philip Darivoff, Kim and Greg Lippmann, Laura and Kevin O'Donohue, Kate and Brad Peck, Michael K. Rozen, Amy Jacobs and Henry Tisch.