NEW YORK CITY: Encores!, the Broadway musical concert series at New York City Center, has announced its 2016 season.
It begins with a revival of the 1940 all-black musical Cabin in the Sky (Feb. 10–14, 2016), with music by Vernon Duke, lyrics by John Latouche and librettist Lynn Rootset. The show, which includes the standard “Taking a Chance on Love,” is a fable about a man given six remaining months on Earth prove his worth.
Next is a revisit of the 1969 hit 1776 (March 30–April 3, 2016), which tells the story of the United States’ founding, with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone. In a statement, Encores! artistic director Jack Viertel conceded that while the show is one “we’ve long contemplated doing,” they’ve decided to mount it now due to the popularity Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. “We felt it would be an especially enjoyable moment to look at this wonderful show. It may also start a few conversations, which, in the theater, we always hope to do.”
The season closes with 1965’s Do I Hear a Waltz? (May 11–15), the only collaboration of composer Richard Rodgers with lyricist Stephen Sondheim, with a book by Arthur Laurents’s, based on his own play The Time of the Cuckoo. It tells the tale of a middle-class American woman who uses her meager savings for a long-dreamed-of trip to Venice seeking love and learns an important lesson instead.