Colin Donnell, who is currently playing John Truitt in the Irish Repertory Theatre production of Meet Me in St. Louis, will play Young Ben. Natalie King Smith, seen on Broadway in 42nd Street, will be Young Dee Dee.
Donnell and Smith join the previously announced Victoria Clark as Sally Durant Plummer, Donna Murphy as Phyllis Stone, Victor Garber as Benjamin Stone, Michael McGrath as Buddy Plummer, Philip Bosco as Dimitri Weismann, Robert Fitch as Theodore Whitman, Christine Baranski as Carlotta Campion, Mimi Hines as Hattie Walker, Lucine Amara as Heidi Schiller, Joanne Worley as Stella Deems, Gerry Vichi as Max Deems, Arthur Rubin as Roscoe, Yvonne Constant as Solange, Leena Chopra as Young Heidi, Dorothy Stanley as Dee Dee West, Diane J. Findlay as Sandra Cranes, Anne Rogers as Emily Whitman, Curtis Holbrook as Young Buddy, Katie Klaus as Young Sally, Jenny Powers and Young Phyllis, Cameron Adams as Young Hattie, Shannon Marie O'Bryan as Young Solange, Denise Payne as Young Emily, Jenifer Foote as Young Sandra, Ashlee Fife as Young Stella, Jennifer Mathie as Young Carlotta, Kristen Beth Williams and Emily Fletcher as Showgirls and Clyde Alves as Kevin.
The ensemble will comprise Ben Hartley, Brian Marcum, Andrew Fitch, Matt Wall, JD Webster and Barrett Martin.
Directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw, Follies will play City Center Feb. 8-12.
Eric Stern will be the guest music director for Follies, which kicks off the 2007 season of Encores! John Lee Beatty will be the scenic consultant. Follies, with songs by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Goldman, was originally directed by Harold Prince on Broadway in 1971. Since then, it has received a legendary star-filled concert at Lincoln Center in 1985, a Roundabout revival on Broadway directed by Matthew Warchus in 2001, and numerous regional mountings, including a Paper Mill Playhouse engagement that featured Donna McKechnie and the late Ann Miller. The classic Sondheim score also boasts such tunes as "I'm Still Here," "Broadway Baby," "Could I Leave You?," "Waiting for the Girls Upstairs" and "The Road You Didn't Take."
Katie Klaus made her Broadway debut as the standby for the role of Cleo in the recent musical The Times They Are A-Changin'.
Jenny Powers played Meg in Broadway's Little Women. Her other theatrical credits include Bounce, A Little Night Music, A Long Gay Book and Everything's Ducky.
Show times for Follies are Feb. 8 and 9 at 8 PM, Feb. 10 at 2 and 8 PM, Feb. 11 at 6:30 PM and Feb. 12 at 8 PM.
*
A full-scale restoration of Face the Music, the 1932 Irving Berlin Moss Hart musical, will follow Follies, playing March 29-April 1 at City Center. Originally directed by George S. Kaufman, Face the Music concerns "a desperate producer in New York trying to raise the money for his latest revue, Rhinestones of '32." The musical features such Berlin tunes as "Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee" and "Soft Lights and Sweet Music." Rob Fisher will be the musical director for the second Encores! offering.
The season will conclude with Stairway to Paradise, an original revue created specially for the Encores! series. Playing May 10-14, the production, according to press notes, will be "a celebration of the very best material from a half century of Broadway revues, and will include numbers and sketches from Florenz Ziegfeld's shows and other legendary musicals and revues of the era." Paul Gemignani will be the musical director for this production as well.
Tickets for the upcoming season are available by visiting the New York City Center box office, which is located on West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues; by calling (212) 581-1212; or by logging on to www.nycitycenter.org. Tickets are priced $25, $50, $90 and $95.
