For Immediate Release: February 10, 2005
Media Contact: Deborah Fleischman, for Philadelphia Theatre Company, 215.735.7356

Philadelphia Theatre Company presents the Philadelphia premiere of the musical Elegies: A Song Cycle by Tony Award-winning composer William Finn beginning March 18 and running through April 17 at Plays & Players Theater (1714 Delancey Street). Directed by Joe Calarco, the ensemble cast features Michael Rupert and Keith Bryon Kirk from the original Lincoln Center production as well as Sherri Edelen, Will Gartshore and Donna Migliaccio.

Previews begin Friday, March 18 with opening night on Wednesday, March 23. Performances run Tuesday through Sunday until April 17. Tickets are $30 to $45, with discounts for students, seniors and groups and are available by calling the PTC Box Office at 215-985-0420 or visiting www.phillytheatreco.com.

The Production Media Sponsor for Elegies: A Song Cycle is the Jewish Exponent. PTC's Media Partner is CBS 3. The Season Media Sponsor is the Philadelphia City Paper.

William Finn, known for his clever lyrics and musical style that mixes elements of pop, rock, R&B and jazz, has created a buoyant, uplifting evening of witty and moving songs that serve as musical love letters to remember people who are no longer with us.

Elegies: A Song Cycle received its world premiere at Lincoln Center in spring 2003, originally playing on Sunday & Monday nights on the set of another production. William Finn is the writer and composer of Falsettos, for which he was awarded two Tony Awards, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score. His musical, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, recently opened at Second Stage in New York. He has also written and composed In Trousers, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland (Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, two Los Angeles Drama Critics Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, the Lucille Lortel Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwrighting) and A New Brain (Lincoln Center premiere 1998) Finn wrote the lyrics to Graciela Daniele's Tango Apasionado (music by the Astor Piazolla) and with Michael Starobin, the music to James Lapine's version of The Winter's Tale. His musical Romance in Hard Times was presented at the Public Theatre. For television, Mr. Finn provided the music and lyrics for the Ace Award-winning HBO cartoon "Ira Sleeps Over" and the score for "The Poky Little Puppy's First Christmas."

Joe Calarco (Director) directed PTC's production of The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown, which won a Barrymore Award for Outstanding Musical. He was the adaptor/director of Shakespeare's R&J, which ran for a year Off-Broadway and earned him a Lucille Lortel Award. He also directed the play's premieres in Chicago (5 Joseph Jefferson Award nominations including Best Play and Best Director), London's West End, Washington, D.C. (Helen Hayes Award nominations for Best Play and Best Director) and Japan. He directed the critically acclaimed world premiere of the musical Sarah, Plain and Tall at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York. He is an Artistic Associate at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, where he recently directed a critically acclaimed production of Elegies: A Song Cycle and directed the world premiere of Norman Allen's Nijinsky's Last Dance (4 Helen Hayes Awards including Best Play and Best Director), Sideshow (4 Helen Hayes Awards including Best Musical and Best Director), and the world premiere of his own play …in the absence of spring… which premiered in New York at Second Stage under his own direction.

Sherri Edelen won a Helen Hayes Award for Side Show and Helen Hayes nominations for She Loves Me, The Rink and Assassins. She has toured in the national production of Big and Nunsense and has performed regularly at Signature Theatre, the Kennedy Center, Olney Theatre Center, Round House Theatre, TheatreVirginia and Stages St. Louis.

Will Gartshore appeared in the Lincoln Center production of Parade and Off-Broadway in The Last Session and Ziegfield Follies of 1936. As a regular performer at Signature Theatre, he recently starred in Elegies: A Song Cycle and received two Helen Hayes nominations for Grand Hotel and Floyd Collins. He has also appeared at the Kennedy Center, Studio Theater and Olney Theatre Center.

Keith Byron Kirk appeared in the original Lincoln Center production of Elegies: A Song Cycle and again in the Los Angeles production. He began his stage career as an actor in Chicago with the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, followed by productions at La Jolla Playhouse and Great Britain's National Theater as well as on Broadway. His performance in the first national tour of Miss Saigon was awarded a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical and was reprised on Broadway where he has also starred in King David, The Civil War and The Piano Lesson. Other performance credits include Houston's Alley and Black Ensemble Theaters, Williamstown Theater Festival, Ahmanson Theater, New Jersey Shakespeare Festival and the Kennedy Center.

Donna Migliaccio has performed in several productions at Signature Theatre including their recent production of Elegies: A Song Cycle and the world premieres of The Highest Yellow and The Christmas Carol Rag. She has appeared at the Kennedy Center, Olney Theatre Centre, and Arena Stage, and toured in the 50th Anniversary production of Guys and Dolls.

Michael Rupert reprises the role he created in the New York premiere of Elegies: A Song Cycle at Lincoln Center. He won a Tony and Drama Desk Award for Sweet Charity, a Tony nomination for Falsettos, and a Tony nomination and Theatre World Award for The Happy Time. He has also starred on Broadway in Ragtime, City of Angels, Mail, Shakespeare's Cabaret and Pippin. Off-Broadway, he has appeared in Ancient History, Putting it Together, March of the Falsettos, Festival and Fragile-Handle With Care. His regional theater credits include productions at Long Wharf Theatre, Repertory Theater of Los Angeles, Coconut Grove Playhouse, Hartford Stage Company, Goodman Theater, Mark Taper Forum, Paper Mill Playhouse and the Kennedy Center.

Elegies: A Song Cycle brings together PTC alumni designer James Kronzer (sets), Chris Lee (lights), and PTC alumni designer Anne Kennedy (costumes) with sound designer Tony Angelini and music director Kimberly Grigsby. Kronzer designed sets for PTC's Sylvia and received a Barrymore Award for The Baker's Wife at Arden Theatre Company. Lee and Kennedy designed lights and costumes respectively for both PTC's The Last Five Years and Signature Theatre's production of Elegies: A Song Cycle. Angelini designed for Signature Theatre's Elegies: A Song Cycle and for several productions in the Sondheim celebration at the Kennedy Center. Grigsby music directed the Broadway productions of Caroline, or Chang; The Full Monty and You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown. PTC's dramaturg for Elegies: A Song Cycle is Warren Hoffman.

PTC's 2004/2005 season concludes with the Philadelphia premiere of Take Me Out, the 2003 Tony Award-winner for Best Play, written by Richard Greenberg and directed by James J. Christy running May 13 through June 12.

Philadelphia Theatre Company, now in its 29th season, is Philadelphia's only non-profit professional theater dedicated exclusively to producing regional and world premieres of works by contemporary American playwrights. Under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director, Sara Garonzik, PTC has had ever-increasing national impact with over 100 new American plays. Recent world premiere productions include: Bruce Graham's According to Goldman; Jeffrey Hatcher's A Picasso; Daniel Stern's comedy Barbra's Wedding; John Henry Redwood's No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs; J.T. Roger's White People; David Ives' Lives of the Saints; three-time Tony Award-winning Master Class by Terrence McNally; Bunny Bunny by Alan Zweibel; and the American premiere of Birdy by Naomi Wallace. A Picasso will receive its New York premiere at the Manhattan Theatre Club in March, 2005. Philadelphia Theatre Company was chosen Best Theatre Company 2003 by Philadelphia Magazine. Since 1995, PTC has received 83 nominations and 24 awards from Philadelphia's Barrymore Awards, most recently for The Last Five Years (Overall Outstanding Production of a Musical, 2002-2003) and A Picasso (Outstanding New Play, 2002-2003). Philadelphia Theatre Company has been in residence at the historic Plays & Players Theater since 1982.

For further information, please call 215-985-1400 or visit www.phillytheatreco.com.

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