Contact: Tina Slak, 610.282.WILL [9455]
[email protected]
Center Valley, PA –Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival announces casting for the first Main Stage production of the summer season, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical Crazy for You, with music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin and a book by Ken Ludwig.
Broadway actors Danny Gardner and Hayley Podschun will star as love interests Bobby Child and Polly Baker, respectively.
Gardner has performed on Broadway in Dames at Sea and in the National Tours of White Christmas and 42nd Street. He has also performed at Radio City Music Hall and City Center Encores in New York City, N.Y.
Podschun’s Broadway credits include Hairspray, Chaplin, Sunday in the Park with George, and Anything Goes. She has played the leading role of Glinda in the National Tour of Wicked and was seen in the film Hail, Caesar!.
Joining them in the cast, as Bela Zangler is Vishal Vaidya (credits include Broadway, City Center Encores, Arena Stage, and Kennedy Center); Kate Loprest as Irene Roth (Broadway credits: Hairspray, Xanadu, Drowsy Chaperone, and Wonderland); Christopher Coucill as Everett Baker (Broadway: Annie Get Your Gun, Kiss Me Kate, The Graduate); and Matthew Patrick Quinn as Lank Hawkins (National Tour: Finding Neverland).
They will be joined by Rashaan James, II (tours include South Pacific, West Side Story, and 42nd Street); Jerry Gallagher (regional credits include Paper Mill Playhouse, MUNY, and Goodspeed Opera House); and Jason Daniel Rath (Denver Center, Maltz Jupiter Theatre, and Westchester Broadway Theatre).
“Casting Crazy for You in New York was thrilling—a fireworks display of tap dance, comedy, and song,” says Patrick Mulcahy, producing artistic director. “It should be dazzling by the time it hits the stage.”
As previously announced,the productionwill be helmed by Broadway actress and director Gina Lamparella, who directed PSF’s King Richard II last season. Her acting credits include the Broadway productions of The Phantom of the Opera, A Little Night Music, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Fiddler on the Roof, Gypsy, Imaginary Friends, Jane Eyre, and Les Misérables; and TV appearances include Master of None, All My Children, As the World Turns, and Guiding Light. Gina’s PSF acting credits include Thaisa in Pericles and Miranda in The Tempest. Her additional PSF directing credits include Beauty and the Beast; the Linny Fowler WillPower Tours of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, and Hamlet; and associate director of The Taming of the Shrew. She has also directed in New York and Florence, Italy.
The creative team for Crazy for You features scenic design by Steve TenEyck, costume design by Sam Fleming, lighting design by Eric T. Haugen, and sound design by Matthew Given. The musical will be under the music direction of, and conducted by, Ryan Touhey with choreography by Stephen Casey.
Treasured Gershwin songs meet sparkling, sensational dances in Crazy for You, the ultimate feel-good musical comedy that will kick-off the summer season on PSF’s Main Stage on June 12. From acclaimed Lend Me a Tenor and The Three Musketeers funnyman playwright Ken Ludwig, Crazy for You features some of the most well-known standards of the American songbook including, “I’ve Got Rhythm,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” and “Nice Work if You Can Get It.”
Crazy for You, runs June 12 to June 30 at the Labuda Center for the Performing Arts on the Center Valley campus of DeSales University.
Subscription packages and single tickets can be purchased online at www.pashakespeare.org or by calling the PSF box office at 610.282.WILL [9455].
Additional casting announcements are forthcoming and updates can be found at www.pashakespeare.org.
The 2019 Festival Season Sponsor is Valerie Moritz Smith. The Associate Season Sponsors are Linda Lapos and Paul Wirth, Kathleen Kund Nolan and Timothy E. Nolan, the Szarko family, and Harry C. Trexler Trust.
The professional theatre company at DeSales University, PSF features acclaimed actors from Broadway, television, and film, winners and nominees of the Tony, Obie, Drama Desk, and other major theatre awards, from New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and around the country.
Summer 2019 Season:
Main Stage: Crazy for You (June 12 to June 30), Antony and Cleopatra (July 10 to Aug 4), Private Lives (July 18 to Aug 4), Shakespeare for Kids (July 24 to Aug 3).
Schubert Theatre: The Adventures of Robin Hood and Maid Marian (May 31 to Aug 3), The Mystery of Irma Vep (June 20 to July 14), Henry IV, Part 1 (July 24 to Aug 4).
About Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival
Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Patrick Mulcahy, is the only professional Equity theatre of its scope and scale within a 50-mile radius. PSF is one of only a handful of theatres on the continent producing Shakespeare, musicals, classics, and contemporary plays, all of which can all be seen in rep and in multiple spaces within a few visits in a single summer season. Similarly, PSF was among just a handful of theatres on the continent this summer to produce three Shakespeare plays in a single summer season. A patron would have to travel seven to nine hours from PSF to find a comparable range of offerings at a single theatre within a few weeks’ time.
The Festival’s award-winning company of many world-class artists includes Broadway, film, and television veterans, and winners and nominees of the Tony, Emmy, Obie, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Jefferson, Hayes, Lortel, and Barrymore awards. A leading Shakespeare theatre with a national reputation for excellence, PSF has received coverage in The Washington Post, NPR, American Theatre Magazine, Playbill.com, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and in recent seasons The New York Times has identified PSF as one of the leading summer theatre festivals in the nation. “A world-class theater experience on a par with the top Bard fests,” is how one New York Drama Desk reviewer characterized PSF.
Founded in 1992 and the Official Shakespeare Festival of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, PSF’s mission is to enrich, inspire, engage, and entertain the widest possible audience through first-rate productions of classical and contemporary plays, with a core commitment to Shakespeare and other master dramatists, and through an array of education and mentorship programs. A not-for-profit theatre, PSF receives significant support from its host, DeSales University, from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. With 150 performances of seven productions, the Festival attracts patrons each summer from 30+ states. In 27 years, PSF has offered 168 total productions (72 Shakespeare), and entertained 900,000+ patrons from 50 states, now averaging 34,000-40,000 in attendance each summer season, plus another 13,000 students each year through its WillPower Tour. PSF is a multi-year recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts: Shakespeare in American Communities, and is a constituent of Theatre Communications Group, the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, and the Shakespeare Theatre Association. In 2013, leaders of the world’s premier Shakespeare theatres gathered at PSF as the Festival hosted the international STA Conference.
The Festival’s vision is for world-class work.
PATRICK MULCAHY (Producing Artistic Director, PSF) Since assuming leadership in 2003, Mulcahy has led PSF’s surge in artistic excellence, financial stability, and national recognition. Accomplishments include first-ever grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, attracting a multitude of award-winning artists including winners and nominees of the Tony, Obie, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Barrymore, and Emmy awards, a doubling of annual attendance, a successful campaign to double the Festival’s endowment, and the expansion of the number of Actors’ Equity contracts per season. He led the strategic planning process that led to PSF’s Vision 2030, a commitment to world-class professional theatre, and coverage in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Washington Post. As a professional director, actor, and fight director, credits include Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatre, television and radio. Mr. Mulcahy has acted with many industry luminaries including Don Cheadle, Angela Bassett, Cynthia Nixon, and Tony Shaloub at the New York Shakespeare Festival, The Roundabout Theatre, Hartford Stage, Great Lakes Theatre Festival, and the Walnut Street Theatre. He served as fight director for A Few Good Men on Broadway, and multiple Off-Broadway productions starring Marcia Gay Harden, John Mahoney, Patrick Dempsey, and John Savage. He directed Oscar nominee Vera Farmiga in The Real Thing, and, for PSF, directed The Winter’s Tale, Henry IV, Part 1, The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Shakespeare in Love. Also Head of Acting at DeSales, Patrick holds degrees in acting and directing from Syracuse University.