Looking's Jonathan Groff & Tony Winner Sutton Foster Will Lead Encores! Off-Center Productions in 2015
Jonathan Groff (Frozen, Looking, Spring Awakening) and two-time Tony winner Sutton Foster (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Anything Goes) will headline the third Encores! Off-Center Series at City Center next year. Groff will star in A New Brain, an autobiographical work by William Finn in collaboration with James Lapine in June. The following month, Foster will lead Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party. Cult favorite Little Shop of Horrors will also return for one-night-only.
A New Brain features music and lyrics by Finn and a book by Finn and Lapine. Directed by Lapine, the show is a medical tragedy seen through the zany iris of a Looney Tunes short. After struggling composer Gordon Michael Schwinn (Groff) collapses face-first into a plate of spaghetti, he is diagnosed with a brain tumor and is forced to come to terms with his creative ambitions and the lovable screw-ups in his life: an overbearing boyfriend, a power-belting homeless woman, and a nasty kiddie-show host named Mr. Bungee. The show premiered at Lincoln Center Theater on May 14, 1998 and ran for 78 performances. It will run June 24, 2015 through June 27.
Sci-fi musical Little Shop of Horrors has a book and lyrics by Howard Ashman, music by Alan Menken and will star the show's original headliner Ellen Greene. Directed by Dick Scanlan and choreographed by Patricia Wilcox, the tuner follows a hapless florist shop worker who acquires an R&B-singing plant that feeds on human blood. An R&B girl’s trio, The Urchins, provides commentary on the action and will feature Tracy Nicole Chapman, Marva Hicks and Ramona Keller. Little Shop is based on Roger Corman’s 1960 black comedy film by the same name and premiered off-off-Broadway in 1982 before moving off-Broadway to the Orpheum Theatre where it played 2,209 performances. It was revived on Broadway in 2003, playing 372 performances at the Virginia Theatre. The production will play for one-night-only on July 1.
Foster will reunite with her Violet director Leigh Silverman and co-star Joshua Henry in The Wild Party, which has a book, music and lyrics by Lippa. The production is adapted from the Jazz Age narrative poem by Joseph Moncure March and is the story of one tragic, decadent night in a Manhattan apartment shared by Queenie (Foster) and her menacing lover, and the handsome stranger (Henry) who wants to lure her away. It opened at Manhattan Theatre Club on February 24, 2000 and played 54 performances. This production will be choreographed by Sonya Tayeh and play July 15 through July 18.
This will be the third year of Encores! Off-Center, which celebrates landmark off-Broadway musicals that pushed creative boundaries when they were first produced. The 2015 season will feature sets by Donyale Werle, costumes by Clint Ramos, lighting by Mark Barton and sound design by Leon Rothenberg.
