Richard Kind & Lauren Worsham

join cast of City Opera's Candide

(New York, NY January 15, 2008) -  The Harold Prince production of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide returns to the repertoire on Tuesday, April 8, 2008. Jersey Boys’ Daniel Reichard will sing the title role in all 14 performances. Joining him are stage and screen star Richard Kind (The Producers, Spin City) as Dr. Pangloss/Voltaire and Lauren Wosham and Lielle Berman sharing the role of Cunegonde. Broadway and City Opera veteran Judith Blazer rounds out the cast as The Old Lady. With original direction by Harold Prince and choreography by Patricia Birch, Candide was last seen at City Opera in 2005. Sets are by Clarke Dunham, costumes by Judith Dolan, lighting by Ken Billington and sound by Abe Jacob. Candide will run for a limited number of fourteen performances through April 20, 2008. Candide has a book by Hugh Wheeler, adapted from Voltaire, and lyrics by Richard Wilbur, with additional lyrics by Leonard Bernstein, John Latouche and Stephen Sondheim.

New York City Opera performances take place at the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center (63rd St & Columbus). Unless otherwise noted, Tuesday and Wednesday performances begin at 7:30 pm, performances on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings begin at 8:00 pm, and matinees begin at 1:30 pm. Ticket prices range from $16 to $130. Additional details of New York City Opera’s 2007-2008 season, including a synopsis of each opera, audio samples, a video trailer featuring production images and design renderings, are available on City Opera’s website at www.nycopera.com. For more information or tickets, call CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500.

 

BIOS 

Lauren Worsham, Cunegonde. City Opera Debut. Career highlights: Olive in the 1^st National Tour of The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; International Premiere of Adam Guettel’s Myths and Hymns at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; New York Workshops/Readings of The Chemist’s Wife; Bill Finn New Music Cabaret; Mirror, Mirror at Playwright’s Horizons, and Now I Ask of Lucy with Marian Seldes, Phyllis Newman and Kathleen Chalfant; Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro and Miss Silverpeal in Der Schauspieldirektor with Yale College Opera Company; Cunegonde in Candide, Shelly in Bat Boy and Amalia in She Loves Me for Yale University Theater; Graduate of Yale University, 2005.

Lielle Berman, Cunegonde. This season at City Opera: debuted as Noemie in Cendrillon. Career highlights: Tytania in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Cunegonde in Candide with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano; Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi with Yale Opera; Despina in Così fan tutte with Indianapolis Opera; the Second Niece in Peter Grimes with the Opéra National de Paris; Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, Sophie in Werther and Tatyana in Eugene Onegin with the Pittsburgh Opera Center; including Nannetta in Falstaff, Adele in Die Fledermaus, Frasquita in Carmen, Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, and the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte with Lyric Opera Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago; appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Festival de Musique de St. Barth, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, and New Haven Symphony Orchestra.

Judith Blazer, The Old Lady. City Opera Debut: Beggar Woman in Sweeney Todd, 2004. Broadway: LovevMusik; Neil Simon’s 45 Seconds from Broadway (Cindy), Titanic (Lady Caroline), Me and My Girl (Sally), A Change in Heir (Prince Conrad). Off-Broadway: The House of Bernalda Alba (LTC); The Torch Bearers (The Drama Dept.), Hurrah at Last (Roundabout Theatre), Hello Again (Lincoln Center Theater); A Connecticut Yankee (Encores! at City Center); vocal soloist in Twyla Tharp’s Everlast at Metropolitan Opera House. Regional: title roles in Funny Girl (Sundance), The Night Governess (McCarter), The Miracle Worker (George Street Playhouse), Peter Pan (Artpark), and My Fair Lady (Papermill Playhouse); Maria in Twelfth Night (Long Wharf); Lily in On the Twentieth Century (Musical Theatre of San Jose). TV: Law & Order, As the World Turns, Guiding Light, Bernstein’s New York, and In Performance at the White House.

Daniel Reichard, Candide. City Opera Debut. Career highlights: Bob Gaudio in the Original Broadway Cast of Jersey Boys (created role at La Jolla Playhouse); Forbidden Broadway: 20th Anniversary Celebration (original cast); Keith Haring in Radiant Baby at the Public Theater (dir. George C. Wolfe); The Thing About Men at the Promenade Theatre (cast album); Charlie in Goodspeed Opera House’s Brigadoon and workshop of Rachel Sheinkin’s Blood Drive at the O’Neill Center; roles at North Shore Music Theatre, MUNY, Weston Playhouse. University of Michigan graduate.

 

Richard Kind, Pangloss. City Opera Debut. Career highlights: The Producers, Sly Fox, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife (Broadway); Bounce (Goodman Theatre, Kennedy Center); Rough Crossing (Bay Street Theatre); Once in a Lifetime (Guthrie Theatre); Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Big Knife (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Accomplice (Cape Playhouse); Power Failure (Actors Studio Free Theatre Co.); The Seagull (Matrix Theatre); Perfect (Tiffany Theatre); Gravity Shoes (Hudson Theatre); The Second City (Chicago, N.Y., L.A.); Working, All in the Timing, Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight, Synergy (L.A. Theatre Works). Film: Elvis Has Left the Building, Spymate, The Station Agent, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Quicksand, Man's Best Friend, Cold Around the Heart, A Bug's Life, Johns, Stargate, Clifford, Mr. Saturday Night, All-American Murder, Hacks and Tom and Jerry. Television: Spin City, Mad About You, Carol Burnett & Company, Blue Skies, A Whole New Ballgame, The Commish and Unsub; Scrubs, Still Standing, Just Shoot Me and Curb Your Enthusiasm.