Sneak Peek at “Crazy For You”

SIERRA BOGGESS is regarded as one of Broadway’s most beloved ingenues. She is best known world wide for not only re-inventing the coveted role of ‘Christine Daae’ in Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, but for Lord Webber himself going on record to say that “she’s the best, the best Christine certainly.” Boggess portrayed the role in the Broadway, West End, and the televised 25th Anniversary concert productions of Phantom.


Sierra made her Broadway debut as Ariel in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, receiving Drama Desk and Drama League Nominations, as well as the Broadway.com
Audience Award for Favorite Female Breakthrough Performance. Her additional Broadway credits include Master Class, It Shoulda Been You, The Phantom of The Opera, and School of Rock. Boggess’ Off-Broadway credits include Love, Loss, and What I Wore and Music in the Air, alongside Kristin Chenoweth, for New York City Center’s Encores! Series. In London’s West End, Boggess has appeared as Fantine in Les Miserables and originated the role of Christine Daae in Love Never Dies, the critically acclaimed sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, receiving an Olivier Award 
Nomination for her performance.

Sierra starred as Cinderella in the highly anticipated Hollywood Bowl production of Into the Woods where the Los Angeles Times raved of her “crystalline singing and gameness for comedy…Boggess’ Cinderella was enchanting.” Prior to that she starred as Danielle DeBarbarac in the new musical, Ever After at the Alliance Theatre as well as starred in the world premiere of the new play The Age of Innocence at Hartford Stage for which she received a nomination for a Connecticut Critics Circle Award for her portrayal of Countess Ellen Olenska.

Sierra's concert appearances multiple engagements with BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall, The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series The Lyrics of David Zippel, Broadway By The Year at Town Hall, Guys and Dolls at Carnegie Hall opposite Patrick Wilson, Megan Mullally and Nathan Lane, and The Secret Garden at Lincoln Center. She has toured with her cellist sister, Summer Boggess and musical director, Brian Hertz all over the United States as well as Japan, Australia, Germany and London with her concert show which has been preserved live and released on CD, Awakening: Live at 54 Below.

Her recordings include the original cast albums of School Of Rock, It Shoulda Been You, The Little Mermaid, the 25th-anniversary concert of The Phantom of the Opera (also on DVD), the symphonic recording of Love Never Dies, Andrew Lippa’s A Little Princess, Rodgers & Hammerstein:A Night at the Movies with the John Wilson Orchestra, Where The Sky Ends: The songs of Michael Mott, A New York City Christmas: A benefit album for ASTEP and more.

www.sierraboggess.com

Tony Yazbeckbegan his career at the age of 11 on Broadway in Gypsy with Tyne Daly.For the 2014 Broadway revival of On the Town, he won the Astaire Award and was nominated for Tony, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle awards for his virtuosic performance. He also starred in the Susan Stroman/Harold Prince–helmed Japan and Broadway productions of Prince of Broadway for which he received the Chita Rivera Award as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations. 

His other Broadway credits include Finding Neverland (J.M. Barrie), Chicago (Billy Flynn), Irving Berlin’s White Christmas (Phil Davis), Gypsy with Patti LuPone (Tulsa; Outer Critics Circle nomination), A Chorus Line (Al), Oklahoma!, and Never Gonna Dance. Off-Broadway credits include A Chorus Line (City Center), The Cradle Will Rock (Classic Stage), The Beast in the Jungle (Vineyard Theatre), The Scarlet Pimpernel and Crazy For You (both at David Geffen Hall), Fanny Hill (York Theatre), and for New York City Center Encores! he has appeared in Little Me, On the Town, Gypsy, The Apple Tree, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Pardon My English. Regional credits include Alliance, Barrington, Williamstown, Hartford Stage, Goodman, The Muny (St. Louis), Goodspeed (Connecticut Critics Circle Award), Signature (Helen Hayes Award), Trinity Rep, Paper Mill, and Old Globe. Mr. Yazbeck was seen internationally in Kiss Me, Kate at the Royal Albert Hall in London under the baton of John Wilson.

His television and film credits include Billions, Smash, and the feature documentary Every Little Step. In concert he has appeared with the San Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas; Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops under the baton of Steven Reineke; with National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap with Michael Barrett; and most recently he was featured on the PBS Great Performances special The Bernstein Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Yazbeck also stars in his own song and dance show. He recently premiered his solo concert at Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series. His debut album, The Floor Above Me, has been released digitally and on CD by PS Classics.  He will be coming back to Broadway starring as Cary Grant in Flying Over Sunset at Lincoln Center Theatre this next season.  He will also make is New York directorial debut with Jekyll and Hyde at David Geffen Hall in February 2023.

Tony Award-nominated Broadway superstar, recording artist and author Melissa Errico has been praised by The New York Times as “one of Sondheim’s deepest-hearted yet lightest-touch interpreters” while The Wall Street Journal called her 2018 album, Sondheim Sublime, “The best all-Sondheim album ever recorded.” Her new album SONDHEIM IN THE CITY, is Melissa’s kaleidoscopic vision of Sondheim’s songs of urban life, which Gramophone magazine said, “takes the musical theatre compilation album to a new level.” A street fair of New York scenes and moments, it summons back to life the poetic vision of a man who once confessed that his entire creative life had been spent in a twenty-block radius of Manhattan. From the wide-eyed newly-wed for whom a basement room with a quarter-inch view is all that she needs, to the cynical nouveau from New Rochelle who can’t choose between uptown and downtown for her bitter pleasures, Melissa celebrates and embodies New York characters, and their follies, of all kinds – with a clear arc of passage along the way. From innocence (“What More Do I Need?” and “Another Hundred People”) passing into experience (“The Little Things You Do Together”, “Everybody Says Don’t”) and arriving at the plaintive, bittersweet ambivalence that is Sondheim’s tonic note on “Good Thing Going” and “Sorry-Grateful” and the deeply emotional, and redemptive “Being Alive”, Melissa sings Sondheim as no one else can. She will also bring SONDHEIM IN THE CITY – IN CONCERT to London this summer, playing for one night only at The Cadogan Hall on Saturday, July 12.

She is known for her starring roles on Broadway, including My Fair Lady, High Society, Anna Karenina, White Christmas, Dracula, Les Misérables, and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in Michel Legrand’s Amour. She worked with Stephen Sondheim on productions of Sunday In The Park With George (Dot) at The Kennedy Center, John Doyle’s hit New York production of Passion (Clara) and Do I Hear a Waltz? (Leona) at City Center. She played the Baker’s Wife in a concert run of Into The Woods. For PBS television, she sang “Finishing The Hat” on Poetry In America, and included much Sondheim on her own TV special. Melissa also has a long association with the French composer Michel Legrand with whom she made a symphonic album: she wrote his eulogy for The New York Times, and was the only American to sing at his memorial at the Grand Rex in Paris.

Much praised for her recordings, she has received still more praise for her concerts, where she can add her own signature smart talk and sensual style to her sublime singing, offering a presence so impassioned that it led Opera News to call her “the Maria Callas of the American musical theatre”. Her concert life takes her from symphony halls with orchestras -- from New York’s Carnegie Hall to, most recently, Texas and British Columbia-- to intimate nightclubs, including regular residences at the Bal Blomet in Paris and Crazy Coqs in London. 

Her work in recent years has also taken her into the new territory of jazz song, particularly in her Noir album, Out of The Dark: The Film Noir Project (Warner Music Group), which Broadway World called “an exploration into the world of darkness, passion, and mystery -- a triumph of love that puts on full display the reasons why Melissa is one of the great musical interpreters of our time.” Reviewing her Montreal Jazz Festival concert with George Benson and his band in 2023, a writer from London Jazz News added that: “Errico was energized, making sure with every breath that she would get the audience in the 3000-seater Pelletier really on her side. Every high note was heroically held, and she got a standing ovation from this audience.”

Melissa has starred in many non-musical roles, especially in plays by Shaw and Oscar Wilde, including Dear Liar off-Broadway in the spring of 2023, playing Mrs. Patrick Campbell, George Bernard Shaw’s original Eliza Doolittle. She has appeared in films; and television with guest arcs on Cinemax’s “The Knick” and Showtime’s “Billions.” An accomplished author, she writes regularly for The New York Times in her column, “Scenes from An Acting Life”. Of Stephen Sondheim, Melissa has said “he is a musical north star,” and refers to his wisdom and inspiration as “life-saving, sheer joy, giving us all creative courage.”

“Sondheim in The City,” Melissa Errico’s tribute to Sondheim’s urbanity, feels like a New York house tour of thrill and heartbreak…You can almost hear the martini glasses clink—and shatter.” – The New York Times

Dee Hoty has earned three Tony nominations for her starring roles in Footloose, The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public, and The Will Rogers Follies.  She starred on Broadway and in eight major U.S. cities as Donna in Mamma Mia! She has appeared in 13 Broadway shows, including City of Angels (Outer Critics Circle nomination) and Me and My Girl.  Dee’s most recent Broadway appearances were Gigi (2015) and Bright Star (2016).

Her film and TV work include New Amsterdam, Dickinson (Apple TV), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon), The Sinner (USA Network, S1), Julian Fellowes’ film, The Chaperone, and the upcoming Charles Busch film, The Sixth Reel.

Recent stage appearances (pre-COVID) include the roles of Mary Cassat in Susan Stroman’s pre-Broadway MARIE: DANCING STILL, starring Tiler Peck and Terrence Mann at Seattle’s 5^th Avenue Theatre, and Madame (the stepmother) in Cinderella at Paper Mill Playhouse.

She is a BA graduate of Otterbein, and was honored by them in 1997 with an Honorary Doctorate of Arts. The same year, she was inducted into the Hall of Excellence of the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges.

A native of Lakewood (Cleveland) Ohio, Dee has served as an Eastern Principal Counselor of Actors Equity Association since 2018, and in June of 2020, she was elected Eastern Regional Vice President. She has been a proud member since 1976.

Amateur baker, crossword puzzle doer, and dog lover,  www.DeeHoty.com

A five-time Tony Award winning director and choreographer most known for Crazy For You, Contact, The Scottsboro Boys, and The Producers. Her work has been honored with Olivier, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel and a record six Astaire Awards.

She directed and choreographed The Producers, winner of a record-making 12 Tony Awards including Best Direction and Best Choreography.

She co-created, directed and choreographed the Tony Award winning musical Contact for Lincoln Center Theater, which was honored with a 2003 Emmy Award for “Live from Lincoln Center”.

She directed and choreographed the critically acclaimed musical The Scottsboro Boys on Broadway and in the West End, where it was honored with the 2014 Evening Standard Award for Best Musical.

Other Broadway credits include Oklahoma!, Show Boat, Prince of Broadway, Bullets Over Broadway, Big Fish, Young Frankenstein, Thou Shalt Not, The Music Man, The Frogs, Big, Steel Pier, Picnic, and Crazy for You.

Off-Broadway credits include: The Beast in the Jungle, Dot, Flora the Red Menace, And the World Goes ’Round, Happiness and The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville starring Mandy Patinkin and Taylor Mac.

For ten years she choreographed Madison Square Garden’s annual spectacular A Christmas Carol. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut directing and choreographing The Merry Widow, starring Renée Fleming.

Her London West End productions include Crazy For You, Oklahoma!, Show Boat, Contact, The Producers, and Young Frankenstein.

For New York City Ballet, she created Double Feature, a full-length ballet featuring the music of Irving Berlin and Walter Donaldson, and For the Love of Duke, featuring the music of Duke Ellington. 

Other ballet credits include But Not For Me for the Martha Graham Company and Take Five…More or Less for Pacific Northwest Ballet. Her choreography received an Emmy Award nomination for the HBO presentation Liza – Live from Radio City Music Hall, starring Liza Minnelli. She received the American Choreography Award for her work in Columbia Pictures feature film Center Stage. She directed and choreographed The Producers: The Movie Musical, nominated for 4 Golden Globes. 

She directed and choreographed the Broadway bound Ahrens/Flaherty musical Marie for The 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle. In collaboration with the Williamstown Theatre Festival, she directed the play Photograph 51 for Audible. 

She is an Associate Director for Lincoln Center Theater and a member of the Board of Directors for the Ronald O. Perelman Center for the Performing Arts located at the World Trade Center.

She is the recipient of the George Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater and an inductee of the Theater Hall of Fame in New York City.

Learn more at susanstroman.com

Greg Jarrett is a composer, conductor, and pianist. On Broadway, he served as Music Director/Conductor for the revival of Gigi, Music Supervisor for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and conducted performances Side Show, Fun Home, Dames at Sea, and The Nance. Off-Broadway, he will serve as Orchestrator/Music Director for the upcoming Classic Stage Company production of Assassins, and has music directed and conducted Pacific Overtures and The Cradle Will Rock (both at at Classic Stage,) The Beast in the Jungle at the Vineyard, Anything Can Happen In The Theatre: The Musical World of Maury Yeston at the York. In addition, he supervised the recent revival of Timon of Athens at Theatre For A New Audience and The Shakespeare Theatre Company in D.C. He regularly works at Encores! and Encores! Off-Center, and music directed and conducted 2019's Promenade. Regionally, he served as Music Director/Conductor for the world premiere of August Rush at the Paramount Theatre. His cast albums include Anything Can Happen..., Beast In The Jungle, Gigi, Red Eye Of Love, Side Show and Side Show: Added Attractions. Currently, he works at a music and technology startup where he explores the intersection of composition, arrangement, and AI-technology. Education: The University of Michigan.