Real-Life Couple Steven Pasquale and Phillipa Soo Will Lead High Spirits at Encores!

Real-life spouses Steven Pasquale and Phillipa Soo will star in the Encores! presentation of the 1964 musical High Spirits. The show will play New York City Center from February 4 through February 15, 2026. Jessica Stone directs.

Following their appearance in the 2022 production of Guys and Dolls at the Kennedy Center, this marks Soo and Pasquale’s first time performing together in New York. Pasquale’s Broadway credits include Junk, American Son and The Bridges of Madison County. He previously appeared in Encores! productions of The Wild Party and Assassins. Soo’s Broadway credits include Amélie, Into the Woods and Camelot. She is best known for originating the role of Eliza Hamilton in Hamilton.

Soo and Pasquale’s casting reflects an emerging of-the-moment trend: putting real-life partners together on stage. In September, Andrew Barth Feldman will join girlfriend Helen J Shen in Maybe Happy Ending, while Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada will perform together in Cabaret in London.

Not seen on Broadway since its debut, High Spirits is adapted from Noël Coward’s comedy Blithe Spirit, with score by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray. Coward’s story follows novelist Charles Condomine and his wife Ruth, whose marriage is upended when the eccentric medium Madame Arcati unwittingly conjures the ghost of Charles’s late first wife, Elvira. Chaos ensues as the spectral Elvira proves to be a mischievous—and invisible—rival for Charles’s affections.

High Spirits features choreography by Ellenore Scott, with Encores! music director Mary-Mitchell Campbell leading the Encores! Orchestra.

The season will also include Michael John LaChiusa's The Wild Party, directed by Lili-Anne Brown (March 18–29), and La Cage aux Folles, directed by Robert O’Hara and starring Billy Porter (June 17–28).