Encores! to Present Kismet and 70, Girls, 70 in 2006

Encores! has announced two out of the three musicals it will present in 2006. The season will start with Kismet starring Brian Stokes Mitchell followed by 70, Girls, 70.

Kismet will run from February 9 through February 12. The show, based on a play by Edward Knoblock, features music by Alexander Borodin, musical adaptation and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest and a book by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis. The story follows an inventive poet-scoundrel, his beautiful daughter, a wicked Wazir and his man-hungry wife. The tuner has had one Broadway production, which ran from December 1953 through April 1955.

70, Girls, 70, running at City Center March 30 through April 2, is based on the play Breath of Spring by Peter Coke adapted by Joe Masteroff. It features music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Norman L. Martin. The story centers on a group of neglected senior citizens living in a retirement hotel on New York's Upper West Side that regain their zest for life by forming a ring of unlikely thieves, wreaking havoc in stores from Sadies' Second Hand Furs to Bloomingdale's. The show ran on Broadway from April 7, 1971 through May 15, 1971.

Encores! will announce a third season entry to run from May 11 through May 14 at a later date.