New York City Center 2016 Programs

City Center goes Off-Broadway with Encores! Off-Center, a musical theater series led by Tony Award-winning Artistic Director Jeanine Tesori (composer of Fun Home and Violet). Each summer, the series presents landmark Off-Broadway musicals filtered through the lens of today’s most innovative artists.

Runaways

Mainstage

Jul 6 – 9, 2016

In 1977, Elizabeth Swados spent several months observing and interviewing child runaways before shaping their stories, fears, and fantasies into a musical. A deeply unconventional work, Runaways feels like the funkiest, most heartbreaking mixtape ever to come out of a 1970s boom box, packed with reggae anthems, hip-hop, soul-food lullabies, and spoken-word poetry. Cast largely with students from throughout the five boroughs, the Encores! Off-Center production of Runaways will honor the crowning achievement of a theater visionary who was ferocious, inspiring, and left us far too soon.

Off-Center Jamboree!

Mainstage

Jul 16, 2016 – One Night Only

This one-night-only concert will feature Encores! Off-Center alums Sutton Foster and Jonathan Groff—along with special guests—performing Off-Broadway selections from the past, present, and future. Off-Center Artistic Director Jeanine Tesori will be at the piano.

Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr Rosewater

Mainstage

Jul 27 – 30, 2016

The songs of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, from “Suddenly, Seymour” to “Under the Sea,” have become part of the American subconscious—but few have heard their first musical, Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. The 1979 show tells the story of Eliot Rosewater (Santino Fontana), a drunken millionaire who decides to blow his fortune on a town full of pitiable creatures: the illiterate, the depressed, and the eternally pregnant. But there are forces who want to put the kibosh on his philanthropy—like Norman Mushari (Skylar Astin), a lawyer plotting to have Eliot declared insane. With an irresistible crazy-quilt score that volleys between pop, ragtime, Gilbert & Sullivan, and proto-Disney ballads, Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater deserves to be part of our world again. The Encores! Off-Center production will feature orchestrations by Danny Troob, which will be heard for the first time.

Ardani 25 Dance Gala

Mainstage

Aug 19 – 20, 2016

Celebrate the 25th anniversary of Ardani Artists with this “outlandish and hugely entertaining” (The Times, UK) gala event. Presented by the impresario Sergei Danilian, the program will feature a thrilling trio of US premieres, beginning with Vladimir Varnava’s Clay, featuring members of the Mariinsky Ballet. Then, see Marcelo Gomes’ astounding creation Tristesse, featuring an all-star line-up of dancers, including Gomes, Joaquin De Luz, Denis Matvienko, and Friedeman Vogel. The gala comes to a close with Le Divertissement du Roi, choreographed by Maxim Petrov to the music of Jean-Philippe Rameau and featuring members of the Mariinsky Ballet, led by Diana Vishneva in the role of King Louis XIV.

Sunday in the Park with George

Mainstage

Oct 24, 2016 One Night Only

Jake Gyllenhaal returns to City Center for a one-night-only Gala concert of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece. Sunday in the Park with George follows painter Georges Seurat (Gyllenhaal) in the months leading up to the completion of his most famous painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Consumed by his need to “finish the hat,” Seurat alienates the French bourgeoisie, spurns his fellow artists, and neglects his lover Dot, not realizing that his actions will reverberate over the next 100 years. This October, rediscover Sondheim and Lapine’s achingly heartfelt musical about the two things that last forever: children and art.

This Gala performance will honor business leader and philanthropist Adrienne Arsht. Funds raised at the Gala will allow City Center to make the performing arts accessible to the widest possible audience by subsidizing affordable tickets throughout the year.

Natalia Osipova & Artists

A Sadler’s Well London Production

Mainstage

Nov 10 – 12, 2016

Award-winning Russian ballerina Natalia Osipova has performed with the Bolshoi Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, the Mikhailovsky Ballet, and The Royal Ballet. For this latest production, Osipova is joined by dancers Sergei Polunin, James O’Hara, and Jason Kittleberger, in a program of contemporary US premieres, commissioned by Osipova from choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Russell Maliphant, and Arthur Pita. The program will receive its world premiere at Sadler’s Wells in June.

Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg

40th Anniversary Nth American Tour

Mainstage

Jun 2 -11, 2017

Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg returns to City Center with two full-length ballets that typify Boris Eifman’s singular gift for creating powerful, provocative dance works. Inspired by the tragic life of ballerina Olga Spessivtseva, the 1997 ballet Red Giselle has been hailed as “one of the great dramatic ballets of the 20th century” (The San Francisco Chronicle). Tchaikovsky: The Mystery of Life and Death is a “ballet triumph” (Newsday) that delves into the composer’s glamorous life and tortured sexuality. Both ballets have been lovingly revised by Eifman for this engagement.