New York City Center's 2019 Encores! Off-Center lineup will include two musicals from two illustrious Stephens: Sondheim's Road Show (a collaboration with John Weidman) and Schwartz's Working, which will incorporate two additional songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Completing the series is the 1965 musical Promenade, featuring a book and lyrics by María Irene Fornés, who died at the age of 88 earlier this year, and music by Al Carmines.
Off-Center Artistic Director Anne Kauffman will helm the production of the updated Working, running June 26–29. Promenade, directed by Laurie Woolery, will follow July 10 and 11. Road Show closes out the season July 24–27 in a production directed and choreographed by Will Davis.
Returning to City Center for the three-show series is the Lobby Project, a collaboration with the performance group The Civilians, which will offer pre-performance presentations of works inspired by the musicals.
“These three shows represent a status update on the American Dream," said Kauffman in a statement. "How are we defining success and freedom these days and who in this country has access to them? Off-Center is all about bringing the cutting-edge artists of today into contact with the groundbreaking works from the past."Working, Schwartz and book writer Nina Faso's exploration of the American workforce, features songs by Schwartz, Miranda, Craig Carnelia, Micki Grant, Mary Rodgers and Susan Birkenhead, and James Taylor. A reworked production played London last year.
Promenade, an absurdist and experimental piece that appropriately played Off-Broadway's Promenade Theatre in 1969, follows two prison escapees who navigate the hustle and bustle of the city.
Road Show—known formerly as Bounce, Wise Guys, and Gold!—began its long-gestating development at New York Theatre Workshop in 1999. The musical, about the Mizner brothers' pursuit of fortune from gold rush to real estate boom, subsequently played Chicago and Washington, D.C., before returning to New York at the Public Theater in 2008.