Jerry Zaks Signs On to Direct Randy Newman Musical Harps and Angels

Four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks has signed on to direct the previously announced new musical Harps and Angels, featuring the songs of prolific composer Randy Newman. Variety reports that Zaks will re-team with Warren Carlyle, who choreographed Zaks’ recent Encores! production of Girl Crazy, on the tuner, conceived by Jack Viertel. The show will premiere at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles November 10-December 19, 2010.

Harps and Angels will feature songs previously written by Newman arranged in a way to tell a story about the American experience, according to Center Theatre Group. The song list will include "I Love L.A.," "I Think It's Going to Rain Today," "Sail Away," "Feels Like Home" and "You've Got a Friend in Me," made famous by the animated film Toy Story. The composer will not appear in the production.

Newman has provided the scores for dozens of films, including Awakenings, Maverick, Toy Story, Pleasantville, A Bug's Life, Seabiscuit, Monsters Inc., for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "If I Didn't Have You," and Cars, which earned him a Grammy Award for the song "Our Town." In 2000, South Coast Repertory Theatre produced the musical The Education of Randy Newman, based loosely on the life of the songwriter, who provided additional songs for the production.

Zaks won Tonys for his direction of Guys and Dolls, Six Degrees of Separation, Lend Me a Tenor and The House of Blue Leaves. He directed the national tour of the new musical 101 Dalmatians and has been announced as director of All About Me, the forthcoming Broadway production starring Michael Feinstein and Dame Edna Everage.

Harps and Angels completes a Taper season that begins in February 2010 with David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow and continues with Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Glass Menagerie.