Tony winner Joanna Gleason and Jersey Boys star Sebastian Arcelus are among the cast members for Lincoln Center Theater’s forthcoming production of Happiness, a new musical to be directed and choreographed by Tony winner Susan Stroman The Producers, Young Frankenstein. The show will begin performances at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre on February 27 for a 14-week engagement; no opening night has been set.
Happiness is a collaboration between the Grey Gardens team of Scott Frankel music and Michael Korie lyrics and Stephen Sondheim’s frequent collaborator John Weidman book. Weidman and Stroman worked together at Lincoln Center Theater on the Tony-winning musical Contact. The musical is described as telling the stories of a dozen or so New Yorkers stuck in the morning rush of a stalled subway car and required by the spectral trainman to recall and re-enact the happiest moment in their lives before they can continue their travels...and travails.
In addition to Gleason, a Tony winner for Into the Woods and nominee for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Arcelus, the cast of Happiness will include Ana Maria Andricain, Fred Applegate, Holly Ann Butler, Miguel Cervantes, Patrick Cummings, Janet Dickinson, Alan Green, Samantha Maza, James Moye, Alessa Neeck, Ken Page, Robert Petkoff, Jenny Powers, Eric Santagata, Alexander Scheitinger, Lina Silver, Phyllis Somerville, Pearl Sun, Idara Victor and Matt Wall. Additional cast members will be announced soon.
Happiness will have sets by Thomas Lynch, costumes by William Ivey Long, lighting by Peter Kaczorowski and sound design by Scott Lehrer.