Donna Murphy, Ruthie Ann Miles & More Set for Encores!; Mary-Mitchell Campbell Is New Music Director

New York City Center has revealed the full lineup for its 2022-2023 season. The Encores! musical theater series will welcome Mary‐Mitchell Campbell as the new music director. As previously announced, Tony winner Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond will star in a Parade at New York City Center from November 1 through November 6.

Following Parade, the new year will kick off from February 1, 2023 through February 5 with Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel’s The Light in the Piazza, starring Tony winner Ruthie Ann Miles as Margaret Johnson and directed by Chay Yew. Yew’s production transmutes the musical’s drama of encounter across barriers of language, culture and ability.

Next will be Jerry Herman’s 1969 musical Dear World, starring two-time Tony winner Donna Murphy, from March 15 through March 19. In this madcap musical fable, a motley band of outcasts must rally together to save their picturesque Chaillot neighborhood in Paris from a greedy cabal of oil‐hungry bankers. Murphy takes on the musical’s giddy, garish heroine, Countess Aurelia, performing some of Herman’s sweetest and most sumptuous songs, including “I Don’t Want to Know,” “Kiss Her Now” and “Each Tomorrow Morning." Josh Rhodes directs and choreographs.

Closing out the Encores! season will be Lionel Bart’s Oliver! from May 3 through May 14, marking the musical’s first major New York production in nearly 40 years. Directed by Encores! Artistic Director Lear deBessonet, this landmark revival revels in the brassy, boisterous sound of such classics as “I’d Do Anything,” “Oom Pah Pah!” and “Consider Yourself.” The story of a child who dares to trust in others, search for love and ask for more in London’s seedy underworld, the coming‐of‐age tale promises to inspire a new generation of musical theater lovers.

Campbell is widely respected for her work as a conductor, music director, orchestrator, composer and arranger on productions like Road Show, The Prom, Some Like it Hot and the 2006 revival of Company. She now takes up the baton leading the acclaimed Encores! orchestra and joins Artistic Director deBessonet and Producing Creative Director Clint Ramos for an exciting 2023 Encores! season.

As previously reported, the starry Encores! staging of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods, directed by deBessonet, will bow at Broadway's St. James Theatre beginning on June 28 and will play a limited eight-week run.