A dream role come true! Laura Osnes will reunite with her princely Cinderella costar Santino Fontana for the Transport Group’s concert presentation of The Music Man on August 11. Guys, we all totally called this one. The one-night-only event, helmed by artistic director Jack Cummings III, will play the Irene Diamond Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center.
The two will be joined by Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Alexandra Silber, Mary Testa, Jill Paice, Heather Mac Rae, Jeffry Denman, Stanley Bahorek, David Greenspan and D.C. Anderson. Complete casting will be announced at a later time.
Osnes made her Broadway debut in Grease, and his since starred in South Pacific, Anything Goes, Bonnie and Clyde and Cinderella. She also appeared in the off-Broadway revival of The Threepenny Opera and the Encores! concert production of Faust earlier this year. Fontana most recently starred on Broadway in Act One; his additional credits include Cinderella, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Billy Elliot and Sunday in the Park with George. On screen, his voice can be heard in Frozen.
The Music Man features music and lyrics by Meredith Willson and a book by Willson and Franklin Lacey. It centers on Harold Hill, a traveling con man who poses as a band leader—despite not knowing the first thing about playing an instrument. Marian Paroo, the town librarian, sees through his act, but as the two fall in love, Hill risks being revealed as a fraud. The musical includes such famous songs as "Good Night My Someone," "Seventy-Six Trombones," "Gary, Indiana," "Shipoopi" and "Til There Was You."
In previous years, the Transport Group has staged concert productions of Once Upon a Mattress and Baby.