Off-Broadway Encores!-Type Concert Series Being Planned

James C. Nicola, artistic director of New York Theater Workshop, has announced plans to start an Encores!-like concert series dedicated to Off-Broadway musicals. The first season, to begin in the fall, will include Promenade, Iphigenia in Concert and a third musical to be named later, each of which will run for one week at NYTW, Nicola told The New York Times. No overall title for the series or cast and creative team members have been set.

Promenade opened at the off-Broadway theater that would later be renamed for the musical on June 4, 1969, with a cast that included Madeline Kahn. It featured a book and lyrics by Maria Irene Fornes and music by Al Carmines and ran for 259 performances. Iphigenia in Concert opened at the Public Theater on December 16, 1971, and ran for 139 performances. The show, with music by Peter Link, was adapted from Euripedes by Gretchen Cryer, Doug Dyer and Link and featured Andrea Marcovicci and Nell Carter, among others, in the title role.

"We could go for decades and never run out of interesting things, particularly if you're not too terribly rigid about defining off-Broadway," Nicola told the Times of the new series, which will be staged with no sets.