Christine Baranski, Walter Bobbie, Karen Ziemba & More to Star in Encores!' On Your Toes

Casting has been announced for Encores!' presentation of Rodgers & Hart’s On Your Toes, the final production of the 2012-2013 season at New York City Center. Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, the musical will play seven performances, May 8 through May 12.

Leading the cast will be two-time Tony winner and The Good Wife star Christine Baranski as Peggy Porterfield, Kelli Barrett (Baby It’s You!, The Royal Family, Rock of Ages) as Frankie Frayne, Tony-winning director and actor Water Bobbie (Chicago) as Sergei Alexandrovitch, Jeremy Cohen (Master Class) as Sidney Cohn, New York City Ballet principal dancer Joaquin De Luz as Konstantine Morrosine, American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Irina Dvorovenko as Vera Baronova, Dalton Harrod as Young Junior, director and actor Randy Skinner as Phil Dolan II, Shonn Wiley (42nd Street) as Junior and Tony winner Karen Ziemba as Lil Dolan.

Rounding out the cast are Adam Bashian, Brandon Bieber, Justin Bowen, Abby Church, Rachel Coloff, Steve Czarnecki, Christine DiGiallonardo, Deanna Doyle, Ashlee Dupre, Sara Edwards, Jason Michael Evans, Kurt Froman, Luke Hawkins, Jessy Hendrickson, Beth Johnson-Nicely, Drew King, Mark Mackillop, Sean McGibbon, Mara Newberry, David Scott Purdy, Ariel Shepley, Nicholas Sipes, Kathy Voytko and Alex Wong.

On Your Toes is credited as the first musical to integrate classical dance into a Broadway musical. It centers on Junior (Wiley), a vaudeville hoofer who gets mixed up with a Russian ballet troupe, and Vera (Dvorovenko), the fiery prima ballerina. When the lead male dancer can’t go on, Junior steps up to save the day, over the violent objections of Vera’s jealous boyfriend (De Luz).

Featuring a book by George Abbott, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, music by Rodgers, lyrics by Hart and choreography by George Balanchine, On Your Toes opened on April 11, 1936, at Broadway’s Imperial Theatre and ran for 315 performances. The score includes the title song, “Glad to be Unhappy,” “There’s a Small Hotel” and the ballet “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.” The show was most recently revived on Broadway in 1983 in a production (directed by Abbott) that received five Tony nominations, winning for best revival and for Natalia Makarova’s performance as Vera.

The Encores! production of On Your Toes will have music direction by Rob Fisher. Balanchine’s “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” ballet will be staged by Susan Pilarre, who was ballet mistress for the 1983 Broadway revival.