Tony Award nominee Kelli O'Hara will star as Dot in the upcoming Reprise! production of Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, directed by Jason Alexander with musical direction by Gerald Sternbach. The show will preview at UCLA's Freud Playhouse on January 30, 2007, and open January 31, continuing through February 11. No other casting has been announced.
O'Hara received a 2006 Best Actress Tony Award nomination for her performance opposite Harry Connick Jr. in The Pajama Game and a 2005 Best Featured Actress nomination for The Light in the Piazza. Other Broadway credits include Sweet Smell of Success, Dracula, Follies and Jekyll & Hyde.
Sunday in the Park with George, with a score by Sondheim and book by James Lapine, won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was nominated for a Best Musical Tony. Act I revolves around Georges Seurat and the creation of his signature painting "Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte." Seurat's inability to commit to anyone or anything but his work is echoed in Act II as George's great-grandson confronts his own artistic demons and failure to connect. Past and present merge as both Georges discover basic truths about art, human connection and the constant struggle to "break through to something new." Sondheim songs featured in the score include "Putting it Together," "Move On," "Children and Art" and "Sunday."
The Reprise! series, now in its tenth season, has grown in scope and presents 16 performances of each musical. Rehearsal time has doubled, costumes and scenery have increased and orchestras have been enlarged. Originally presented as "in concert" i.e. scripts in hand, the productions are now completely staged and choreographed. The casts are drawn from Broadway's best performers along with L.A.-based actors who rarely have the opportunity to appear in musicals. Sunday director Alexander, a Tony-winning Broadway veteran before joining the cast of Seinfeld, appeared in the first Reprise! production, Promises, Promises.