For the First Time, Bowl's Annual Musical Production is Semi-Staged For Three Nights

FRIDAY, JULY 28 AND SATURDAY, JULY 29 AT 8:30 PM

SUNDAY, JULY 30 AT 7:30 PM

Media Sponsor for Saturday's concert is U Entertainment Magazine

Climb ev'ry mountain, Search high and low, Follow ev'ry by-way, Every path you know…until you reach the Hollywood Bowl for The Sound of Music on Friday, July 28 and Saturday, July 29 at 8:30 p.m., and Sunday, July 30 at 7:30 p.m. John Mauceri and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra accompany an all-star cast including Melissa Errico, John Schneider, Rachel York, Andrea Bowen, Jeffrey Tambor, and Marni Nixon plus a full cast of actors, dancers, and the Mitch Hanlon Singers performing everyone's favorite Rogers and Hammerstein musical. Award-winning director Gordon Hunt prepared the cast with a rigorous two-and-a-half week rehearsal schedule as choreographer Kay Cole drilled the ensemble for the Ländler.

During the Bowl season, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association annually produces a one-night only semi-staged theatrical production; however this year's performances stretch over three nights. The Sound of Music tells the story of Maria, a young nun who leaves the abbey to become the governess of a naval officer's family prior to the Nazi occupation of Austria. While working for Captain von Trapp, Maria discovers her true calling as wife and mother to his seven children. Filled with memorable songs and embraceable characters, The Sound of Music has left an indelible mark in pop culture history.

Stage and film actress Marni Nixon (Mother Abbess) - the singing voice for Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, Deborah Kerr in The King and I, and many others is autographing her upcoming book, I Could Have Sung All Night, following each performance outside The Bowl Store located on the Plaza.

JOHN MAUCERI's accomplishments extend nationally and internationally, not only to the world's greatest opera companies and symphony orchestras, but also to the musical stages of Broadway and Hollywood, before large television and radio audiences, and in recording studios and major publications. Mauceri has received substantial recognition for his work as one of the principal forces behind the movement to preserve two of America's great art forms, the American musical and music for the American cinema. He is equally at home conducting artists ranging from Plácido Domingo (during a live broadcast of the Grammy Awards) to Madonna (with whom he recorded the soundtrack to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita), from Garth Brooks (an inaugural inductee into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame) to the Smashing Pumpkins (for the 1996 MTV Music Awards). Carol Burnett, Chicago, John Denver, Rodney Gilfry, Jonathan Pryce, Jane Eaglen, Jennifer Larmore, Patrick Stewart, Tito Puente, Charlotte Church, and Trisha Yearwood are among the multitude of artists who have performed with Mauceri and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Mauceri and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra have presented an astonishing number of premieres, and during his year tenure, opera and ballet along with the staging of Broadway musicals returned to the Bowl's stage. In addition to his Hollywood Bowl position as Director, Mauceri was recently elected as Chancellor of the North Carolina School of the Arts and has served as music director for the Pittsburgh Opera since June 2000. The 2006 Hollywood Bowl season marks Mauceri's 16th year and final season with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, which was created for him by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1991.

ANDREA BOWEN began her career as a professional performer on Broadway in New York at the age of 6, playing Young Cosette in Les Miserables, becoming the youngest Cosette in the show's 16 year run. She went on to originate the role of Marta Von Trapp in the original cast of the Broadway revival of The Sound of Music and the role of Adele in the Broadway musical production of Jane Eyre. While performing on Broadway, she also guest starred on Law & Order and Third Watch and appeared in the films, New York Crossing and Highball. Now living in Los Angeles, Andrea has wrapped up the second season of the ABC hit series Desperate Housewives in which she plays Julie Mayer, Teri Hatcher's TV daughter and won a SAG Actor Award for "Best Ensemble in a Comedy Series." Prior to being cast in Desperate Housewives, Andrea played the role of Zooey Glass in the ABC primetime series That Was Then. She also has had numerous guest star appearances on other shows including Boston Public, Strong Medicine, One Tree Hill, Arli$$, and Nip/Tuck. As a recording artist, Andrea can be heard on the original cast albums of Jane Eyre, The Musical and The Sound of Music, '98 Broadway Revival as well as Night of The Hunter, Z the Masked Musical, Broadway Kids Sing America and the Sugar Beats discs "Car Tunes" and "Christmas Album."

KAY COLE brings her renaissance sensibilities to all the productions she directs and choreographs: BARK! now in it's 18th month at LA's Coast Playhouse, Judy's Scary Little Christmas, A Year with Frog and Toad, A Chorus Line, I'm Getting My Act Together, Robber Bridegroom, Grass Harp, She's A Handful, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Sing, Country, Wild Women Blues, Sony Pictures Broadway and Mommy. Her inventive choreography and staging credits include Assassins, Pirates Of Penzance, Cabaret, Songs for a New World, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, South Pacific, Triumph of Love, I Do I Do, Actor, Lawyer, Indian Chief, Dancing at Lughnasa, Take Me Along, The Baker's Wife, Chang and Eng. For Pasadena Playhouse: Under One Umbrella, 110 in the Shade, Do I Hear A Waltz. For the Hollywood Bowl: The Sound of Music, Bernsteins' Mass, Mame, My Fair Lady, Music Man, and Camelot. For Reprise! Broadway: Three Penny Opera, Fiorello, City of Angels, Company, On The 20th Century, Follies, Sweeney Todd, Most Happy Fella, No Strings. Paint Your Wagon (Geffen Playhouse) Grave White Way ( Hudson Theatre) Gaytino (Kirk Douglas Theatre) Dogeaters, The Next Step, Songs For A New World, (Playwrights Arena) As You Like It, Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare LA) Six Dance Lessons In Six Weeks (Geffen Playhouse and Broadway - Belasco Theatre) The Fantasticks , Snoopy, Blockheads (London - West End). She recently moved into film and television, directing Country Rules, THQ, Waiting in Line, and choreographing Guidepost Junction, Ella, Jekyll and Disney's Santa Clause 3. She also teaches Acting for Film and Television at Emerson College LA Annex and UCLA's Musical Theatre Camp. She is the proud recipient of the 2006 Playwrights Arena Award for her outstanding contribution to Los Angeles Theatre.

MELISSA ERRICO burst upon the professional theater scene while only a freshman at Yale, landing the lead at 18-years old in the premier national touring company of Trevor Nunn's Les Miserables. After graduation, she went on to star in many Broadway shows, and has worked extensively in television, film, off-Broadway, and in music recording. Her Broadway credits include Eliza Doolittle in the most recent revival My Fair Lady (Drama Desk, Outer Critics, Helen Hayes noms.) - a role she joyfully reprised at The Hollywood Bowl in 2003 with John Lithgow, and followed up in 2005 with Camelot opposite Jeremy Irons. She starred in the original Broadway musicals Cole Porter's High Society (Drama Desk, Outer Critics Award nom., Bay Area Critics Winner, Drama League Honor), Michel Legrand's Amour, Dracula, and Anna Karenina. It was during work on Amour (for which she was nominated for a 2003 Tony Award for "Best Leading Actress," the Outer Critics Circle Award, and received a New York Drama League Honor) that Errico began her solo music collaboration with her musical idol, film/pop/jazz composer Michel Legrand - which has resulted in appearances at clubs such as Vibrato in LA, The Oak Room, Lincoln Center Jazz, Joe's Pub, and a pop symphonic album of Legrand songs arranged and conducted by Michel, produced by Phil Ramone - for release in 2006. Errico was selected by Stephen Sondheim to star as Dot/Marie in Sunday in the Park with George at the prestigious Sondheim Celebration at The Kennedy Center in 2002 (Helen Hayes nom.), a role she has triumphantly reprised since at Avery Fisher, Symphony Space and WNYC radio. Series where she starred in Call Me Madam with Tyne Daly, and made a particular smash with her witty turn as the Goddess of Love in Kurt Weill's One Touch of Venus; winning the Lucille Lortel Best Actress Award for her dream role which she has often reprised in concert.

GORDON HUNT was nominated twice for the Directors Guild of America Award for best director of a comedy and won the award for his work on Mad About You. He has directed over 50 episodes of such TV shows as Frasier, Suddenly Susan and many others. In the theatre, he has directed plays and musicals on both coasts including Leonard Bernstein's Mass at the Hollywood Bowl where he also directed My Fair Lady, The Music Man, Mame and last year's Camelot starring Jeremy Irons & Melissa Errico. For Reprise, he has directed1776, She Loves Me, and Pippin. For thirteen years he has directed the Salon series at the Mark Taper Forum starring Michael Feinstein. In New York he directed the all-star Centennial Salute to Noel Coward at Carnegie Hall, and Black Water and opera with libretto by Joyce Carol Oates, and a number of plays and workshops. He is the author of the best selling theatre book, How to Audition, and as a lyricist, he won the MACC award for best song of the year for Errol Flynn, which he wrote with Amanda McBroom.

Born in Altadena, California, MARNI NIXON'S career includes Opera, (Seattle, San Francisco, Ford Foundation TV Opera Cameos, the former Los Angeles Guild Opera and Cosmopolitan Opera), Chamber and Symphony Orchestra, Oratorio soloist and Grammy Nominated recordings both Popular and Classical (Boulez, Villa-Lobos, Ives, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Copland) including conductors Von Beinum, Wallenstein, Previn, Mehta, Stravinsky, Stokowski, Mauceri, Slatkin and Bernstein. Awards include Four Emmys for Best Actress on her children's TV show Boomerang and two Gold Records for Songs for Mary Poppins and Mulan (voice of Grandma Fa), and 2 Classical Grammy Nominations. Broadway appearances include Heidi Schiller in Sondheim's Follies, and originating the roles of Sadie McKibben in Opal, and Edna in Taking My Turn, and Aunt Kate in James Joyce's the Dead. In Regional and Off-Broadway her roles have included Nurse in Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret, and recently Eunice Miller in Kander and Ebb's "70, Girls, 70". In the recent premiere of Richard Wargo's Opera Ballymore at Skylight Opera in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (taped for PBS) she originated the role of Mrs. Willson . She is a popular favorite on Garrison Keillor's MPR radio show A Prairie Home Companion. A much sought after judge of Metropolitan Opera Auditions, National Association of Teachers of Singing, etc. Miss Nixon presents Master Classes in both Classical and Music theater repertoire, in Colleges and Universities and teaches privately throughout the USA. Miss Nixon is the singing voice for Deborah Kerr, Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn in the Motion Pictures and on the Soundtracks of The King and I, An Affair to Remember, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, and Grandma Fa in The Legend of Mulan. Her autobiography I Could Have Sung All Night, published by Billboard Books (Watson-Guptill), written with Stephen Cole, will be released in September 2006.

The multi-talented JOHN SCHNEIDER has been a critically-acclaimed presence on stage and screen for nearly 30 years. His diverse career has encompassed everything from award-winning musicals and features, to blockbuster TV series and directing. Schneider is currently producing his own independent film, COLLIER & CO., which he wrote and will direct and star. Schneider just completed a five-season turn as 'Jonathan Kent,' the father of teenage 'Clark Kent' in the critically-acclaimed smash hit "Smallville" for The WB. His other recent television credits include The WB television movie "Felicity: An American Girl Adventure" opposite Marcia Gay Harden, and a hilarious guest-starring turn on Fran Drescher's series "Living with Fran." In addition to acting, John is currently generating immense radio buzz with his unreleased duet with the late country legend Johnny Cash. Entitled "Hell This Ain't Heaven," he recorded the track with Cash while he lived at his home in Nashville several years ago. As a recording artist he has released 11 solo albums. Schneider returned to the stage in 2004 in a one-time performance of "Mame" at the famed Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Well known for his roll as famed character Bo Duke in TV's "The Dukes of Hazzard," the actor is no stranger to the Broadway stage. Schneider starred in 487 performances of Tommy Tune's Tony Award-winning musical "Grand Hotel" and performed in "Music Man," "The Will Rogers Follies," Frank Wildhorn's "Civil War," and "Brigadoon." He also performed in last year's Kennedy Center Honors in a tribute to Carol Burnett, as well as at a tribute to children's television pioneer Mr. Rogers at the Television Academy in Los Angeles. Recognizing a need for better health care for children, John co-founded the Children's Miracle Network, an international non-profit organization dedicated to helping children by raising funds (more than $2.5 billion to date) and awareness for 170 children's hospitals throughout North America.

JEFFREY TAMBOR'S credits span the full range of the entertainment world, from film to network and cable television to theater. The multi-talented actor starred in the role of Hank Kingsley in HBO's hit series, "The Larry Sanders Show," for six successful seasons. He returned to the small screen to co-star in FOX's critically acclaimed and Emmy Award winning "Arrested Development." Tambor received two Emmy nominations for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy for his portrayal of patriarch George Bluth Sr. The actor will next be seen this fall in NBC's comedy "20 Good Years," opposite veteran comedic actor John Lithgow. He has also starred in his own series, "Mr. Sunshine," and appeared in regular and recurring stints on "Hill Street Blues," "L.A. Law," "American Dreamer," "Studio 5B," "Tales from the Crypt," and "Max Headroom." Tambor's film credits include Sponge Bob, Hellboy, Never Again, Pollack, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Girl Interrupted, Get Well Soon, Meet Joe Black, Dr. Doolittle, and There's Something About Mary, And Justice For All, City Slickers, Mr. Mom, Pastime, Crossing the Bridge, Article 99, Life Stinks, Three O'Clock High, Saturday the 14th, Lisa, No Small Affair, Face Dancer, Under Pressure, A House in the Hills, Radio and Murders, Heavyweights, Big Bully, and Learning Curves. Jeffrey Tambor has also appeared extensively on the legitimate stage. Last year, he returned to his acting roots in the Tony award-winning Broadway revival of Glengarry Glen Ross opposite Alan Alda and Live Shreiber. He has acted and directed at such prestigious regional theatre companies as Seattle Repertory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Academy Festival Theatre in Chicago, San Diego Shakespeare Festival, and South Coast Repertory Theatre.

RACHEL YORK is a dynamic and versatile actress, singer, dancer and comedienne. She is best known for her critically acclaimed Broadway performances in City of Angels, Les Misérables, Victor/Victoria (for which she won the Drama Desk Award) with Dame Julie Andrews, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Kiss Me, Kate (Helen Hayes Nomination), Sly Fox with Richard Dreyfuss and most recently Dirty Rotten Scoundrels co-starring Jonathan Pryce. York has also starred in Putting It Together (Drama Desk Nomination), Dessa Rose at the Lincoln Center Theater (Drama Desk Nomination), Anything Goes (Ovation Nomination), Crucifer of Blood with Billy Crudup, Summer and Smoke, Ragtime, Evita, and Summer of '42. In concert, Ms. York has appeared most recently with the National Symphony and the Pittsburgh Pops under the direction of conductor Marvin Hamlisch. She has also been a featured guest soloist in numerous tribute programs performing the works of Sondheim, Porter, Coleman, Gershwin, Wildhorn, Kander and Ebb, Ahrens and Flaherty, Boublil and Schönberg, and many others. Her film credits include One Fine Day, Billy Bathgate, Killer Instinct, Second Honeymoon, Au Pair II, and her courageous portrayal of Lucille Ball in the CBS made for television movie, Lucy. Her performances in Kiss Me, Kate (filmed for PBS's Great Performances series) and Victor/Victoria are available on video/DVD. York has also appeared on several popular TV series including Reba, Frasier, Arli$$, Spin City, The Naked Truth and Diagnosis Murder. York's debut solo CD, Let's Fall in Love, has been an enormous success since its release in January 2005. She can also be heard on the soundtrack of Billy Bathgate and the original cast recordings of City of Angels, Putting It Together, Victor/Victoria, The Scarlet Pimpernel Encore CD, Dessa Rose, and the upcoming Summer of '42.

One of the largest natural amphitheaters in the world, with a seating capacity of nearly 18,000, the HOLLYWOOD BOWL has been the summer home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since its official opening in 1922, and in 1991 gave its name to the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, a resident ensemble that has filled a special niche in the musical life of Southern California. The 2004 season introduced audiences to a revitalized Hollywood Bowl, featuring a newly-constructed shell and stage and the addition of four stadium screens enhancing stage views in the venue. To this day, $1 buys a seat at the top of the Bowl for many of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's concerts. While the Bowl is best known for its sizzling summer nights, during the day California's youngest patrons enjoy "SummerSounds: Music for Kids at the Hollywood Bowl," the Southland's most popular summer arts festival for children, now in its 38th season. Attendance figures over the past several decades have soared: in 1980 the Bowl first topped the half-million mark and close to one million admissions have been recorded. In February 2006, the Hollywood Bowl was named Best Major Outdoor Concert Venue for the second year in a row at the 17th Annual Pollstar Concert Industry Awards; the Bowl's summer music festival has become as much a part of a Southern California summer as beaches and barbecues, the Dodgers, and Disneyland.

EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

FRIDAY, JULY 28 AT 8:30 PM

SATURDAY, JULY 29 AT 8:30 PM

SUNDAY, JULY 30 AT 7:30 PM

HOLLYWOOD BOWL, 2301 N. Highland Ave. in Hollywood

The Sound of Music

Hollywood Bowl Orchestra

John Mauceri, conductor

Mitch Hanlon Singers

Gordon Hunt, director

Kay Cole, choreographer

Alex Jaeger, costume designer

Casey Cowan, lighting designer

Evan Bartoletti, set designer

Meredith Greenburg, stage manager

Cast:

Maria MELISSA ERRICO

Captain von Trapp JOHN SCHNEIDER

Liesl ANDREA BOWEN

Friedrich BEN PLATT

Louisa MARY CATHERINE HUGHES

Kurt ANDREW HOEFT

Brigitta JUSTINE DORSEY

Marta EMMA ASHFORD

Gretl ANZA SELLER

Elsa Shraeder RACHEL YORK

Max Detweiler JEFFREY TAMBOR

Rolf Gruber DAVID LARSEN

The Mother Abbess MARNI NIXON

Tickets ($5 - $111) are on sale now at the Hollywood Bowl Box Office, by calling Ticketmaster at 213.480.3232, at all Ticketmaster outlets (Robinsons May, Tower Records, and Ritmo Latino locations), or online at HollywoodBowl.com. Groups of 12 or more may be eligible for a 20% discount, subject to availability; call 323.850.2050 for further details. For general information or to request a brochure, call 323.850.2000.

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