New Broadway Musical, WAR PAINT, Starring Two-Time Tony Award Winners PATTI LuPONE and CHRISTINE EBE

FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF A NEW BROADWAY MUSICAL

WAR PAINT

STARRING TWO-TIME TONY AWARD WINNERS

PATTI LUPONE

AND

CHRISTINE EBERSOLE

TO BEGIN BROADWAY PREVIEWS MARCH 7, 2017

AT THE NEDERLANDER THEATRE

OPENING NIGHT APRIL 6, 2017

“AN INTRIGUINGLY JUICY AND GLAMOROUS NEW MUSICAL.”

Chicago Tribune

“STARRING A DELICIOUSLY PAIRED PATTI LUPONE AND CHRISTINE EBERSOLE.

BOTH ARE KNOCKOUTS.”

The New York Times

“LUPONE AND EBERSOLE WRAP THEIR PRODIGIOUS VOICES AROUND A SWINGING AND SOARING SCORE.

A CELEBRATION OF OLD SCHOOL BROADWAY CRAFTSMANSHIP.”

Washington Post

“BRILLIANT, POIGNANT, AND SUPERBLY PERFORMED.

A MUSICAL WHOSE BEAUTY IS FAR MORE THAN SKIN DEEP.”

Chicago Sun-Times

“A SOPHISTICATED AND RICHLY REWARDING NEW MUSICAL FEATURING

A HEAVILY MELODIC SCORE FULL OF EXTRAORDINARY HIGHS.”

Variety

“A HIGHLY ENTERTAINING NEW MUSICAL ABOUT POWERFUL WOMEN, STARRING POWERFUL WOMEN!

IT’S SURPRISING THE GOODMAN STAGE IS STILL INTACT!”

Huffington Post

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Also Starring Tony Award Nominees

JOHN DOSSETT AND DOUGLAS SILLS

Book by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award Winner DOUG WRIGHT

Music by Tony Award Nominee SCOTT FRANKEL

Lyrics by Tony Award Nominee MICHAEL KORIE

Choreography by Tony Award Winner CHRISTOPHER GATTELLI

Directed by Tony Award Nominee MICHAEL GREIF

THE NEW YORK TIMES TO HOST A SPECIAL

“WAR PAINT TIMES TALK”

WITH PATTI LuPONE AND CHRISTINE EBERSOLE

ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13th AT THE TIMES CENTER

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(New York, NY – October 13, 2016) -- The acclaimed new musical WAR PAINT, starring two-time Tony Award winners PATTI LuPONE and CHRISTINE EBERSOLE, will arrive on Broadway this spring, beginning previews March 7, 2017 and opening April 6 at the Nederlander Theatre (208 West 41st Street). The musical played a sold-out run in Chicago this summer where it became the most successful show in Goodman Theatre’s history. WAR PAINT charts the extraordinary lives of two legendary, trailblazing women – cosmetics entrepreneurs Helena Rubinstein (LuPone) and Elizabeth Arden (Ebersole).

WAR PAINT will also feature Tony Award nominees JOHN DOSSETT and DOUGLAS SILLS, who are reprising their roles from the Chicago world premiere production. Dossett will portray Tommy Lewis, Miss Arden’s husband and chief marketing officer, and Sills will portray the ambitious Harry Fleming, Madame Rubinstein’s clubby confidante and faithful ally.

Directed by Michael Greif (Rent, Next to Normal, If/Then, Grey Gardens), WAR PAINT reunites Scott Frankel and Michael Korie—the acclaimed composer and lyricist team of Grey Gardens and Far From Heaven—with Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Doug Wright (Grey Gardens, I Am My Own Wife, The Little Mermaid). Choreography is by Tony Award-winner Christopher Gattelli.

The musical is inspired by the book, War Paint, by Lindy Woodhead and the documentary film, The Powder & the Glory, by Ann Carol Grossman and Arnie Reisman.

WAR PAINT tells the remarkable story of cosmetics titans Helena Rubinstein (LuPone) and Elizabeth Arden (Ebersole), who defined beauty standards for the first half of the 20th Century. Brilliant innovators with humble roots, both women were masters of self-invention who sacrificed everything to become the country’s first major female entrepreneurs. They were also fierce competitors, whose 50-year tug-of-war would give birth to an industry that would forever change the face of America. From Fifth Avenue society to the halls of Congress, their intense rivalry was ruthless, relentless and legendary—pushing both women to build international empires in a world dominated by men.

WAR PAINT will be produced by David Stone and Marc Platt.

“When a new musical comes to Broadway starring a musical theatre legend, it is newsworthy; when it arrives starring two legends, it is an event. The artistry, vocal virtuosity, and raw star power that Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole bring to their performances in WAR PAINT thrilled both audiences and critics during our out of town run this summer,” said producer David Stone. “The engagement was a sensation, breaking box office records and becoming the Goodman Theatre’s most successful show ever. The creative team was also able to receive valuable feedback from both the press and Chicago audiences, who were in agreement on how to make this terrific musical even better. We all look forward to sharing this sophisticated and hugely entertaining new Broadway musical with New York audiences this spring.”

WAR PAINT features scenic design by David Korins, costume design by Catherine Zuber, lighting design by Kenneth Posner, sound design by Brian Ronan, orchestrations by Bruce Coughlin and music direction by Lawrence Yurman.

Additional casting and on-sale ticket information will be announced shortly.

For more information, please visit: http://www.warpaintmusical.com

Social channels:

Facebook: War Paint

Twitter: @WarPaintMusical

Instagram: @WarPaintMusical

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BIOGRAPHIES

PATTI LuPONE (Helena Rubinstein) recently starred in Douglas Carter Beane’s Shows for Days, directed by Jerry Zaks, at Lincoln Center Theater. Her New York stage credits include Anna 1 in The Seven Deadly Sins (guest soloist with the NY City Ballet); Joanne in Company (NY Philharmonic); David Mamet’s The Anarchist; Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Award nominations); Gypsy (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Drama League Awards); John Doyle’s production of Sweeney Todd (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Award nominations); Passion; Candide; Can Can; Noises Off; Sweeney Todd (NY Philharmonic); The Old Neighborhood; Master Class; Patti LuPone on Broadway (Outer Critics Circle Award); Pal Joey; Anything Goes (Tony Award nomination, Drama Desk Award); Oliver!; Accidental Death of An Anarchist; The Woods; Edmond; The Cradle Will Rock; Evita (Tony and Drama Desk Awards); Working; The Water Engine; and The Robber Bridegroom (Tony Award and Drama Desk nominations). London: Matters of the Heart, Master Class, Sunset Boulevard (Olivier Award nomination) and Les Miserables (RSC world premiere production) and The Cradle Will Rock (Olivier Award for both productions). Opera credits include Jake Heggie’s To Hell and Back (San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, for the Los Angeles Opera), John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles and Brecht-Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (LA Opera debut) and Marc Blitzstein’s Regina (Kennedy Center). Films include Parker, Union Square, City by the Sea, David Mamet’s Heist and State and Main, Just Looking, Summer of Sam, Driving Miss Daisy, Witness. TV: “Penny Dreadful” (Critics’ Choice Award nomination), “Girls,” “American Horror Story: Coven,” “Ugly Betty,” “Will & Grace,” “Passion,” and “Sweeney Todd,” “Oz,” “Monday Night Mayhem,” “Evening At the Pops with John Williams and Yo-Yo Ma,” “Frasier” (Emmy nomination), “Law & Order,” “The Water Engine,” “L.B.J.” and “Life Goes On.” Recordings, in addition to original cast recordings include: Patti LuPone Live, Matters of the Heart, The Lady With The Torch, Patti LuPone at Les Mouches, Far Away Places. LuPone is a founding member of the Drama Division of The Juilliard School and of John Houseman’s The Acting Company. She is the author of the NY Times best-seller, Patti LuPone: A Memoir.

CHRISTINE EBERSOLE (Elizabeth Arden) received virtually every Off-Broadway award and her second Tony Award for Leading Actress in a Musical for her dual performance as Edith Beale and Little Edie Beale in Grey Gardens. Other Broadway credits include her Tony Award-winning performance as Dorothy Brock in the smash hit revival 42nd Street, Dinner at Eight (Tony and Outer Critics Circle awards nominations) Steel Magnolias, On the Twentieth Century, I Love My Wife, Angel Street, Oklahoma, Camelot opposite Richard Burton, The Best Man, and the recent revival of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, co-starring with Dame Angela Lansbury. She has starred in five City Center Encores!, and received an Obie award and a Drama Desk nomination for her work in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads. Ebersole has appeared in over 20 feature films including The Wolf Of Wall Street, Amadeus, Tootsie, Richie Rich, Black Sheep, My Favorite Martian, Dead Again, Folks!, True Crime, My Girl 2, and The Big Wedding, which also features an original composition that she wrote and sang for the end credits of the film. Her television credits include: a regular cast member of “Saturday Night Live” 1981-82 season, The First Lady on the CBS hit show “Madame Secretary,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “American Horror Story: Coven,” “Royal Pains,” three seasons of “Sullivan and Son” for TBS, “Ugly Betty,” “Law and Order: SVU,” “Boston Legal,” “Will and Grace,” and as Tessie Tura in the TV movie Gypsy with Bette Midler. Ebersole has performed in the concert version of the Opera The Grapes of Wrath at Carnegie Hall, and she appeared with the San Francisco Symphony at Carnegie Hall in a tribute to Leonard Bernstein. She performed at Boston's Symphony Hall and Tanglewood starring as Desiree Armfeldt in a concert version of A Little Night Music with the Boston Pops. In televised concerts, she has often appeared on PBS, including her star turns in Ira Gershwin at 100: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall and The Rodgers & Hart Story: Thou Swell, Thou Witty. She has performed on the Kennedy Center Honors, for Andrew Lloyd Weber and Jerry Herman. As a recording artist, Christine has released several CDs: Live at the Cinegrill, Sunday in New York, In Your Dreams, Christine Ebersole Sings Noel Coward and Strings Attached. www.christineebersole.com.

JOHN DOSSETT’s (Tommy Lewis) Broadway credits include Chicago, Pippin, Newsies, Mamma Mia!, The Constant Wife, Democracy, Gypsy (Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations), Dinner at Eight, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Ragtime, Prelude to a Kiss, Mastergate, Fifth of July and King of Schnorrers. Off-Broadway credits include Giant (The Public Theater/Dallas Theater Center, Drama Desk Award nomination); Down the Road and White People (Atlantic Theater Company); Saved! (Playwrights Horizons); Hello Again and The Clean House (Lincoln Center Theater); Poster of Cosmos, Sunshine, Reckless, Child Byron and The Diviners (Circle Repertory Theatre) and Trudy Blue (MCC Theatre). National tour credits include Kiss of the Spider Woman. Regional credits include Newsies and Paper Moon (Paper Mill Playhouse), First Wives Club (The Old Globe), Dinner with Friends (Variety Arts), How I Learned to Drive (Philadelphia Theatre Company), Ragtime (Shubert Theatre) and Elmer Gantry and Captain’s Courageous (Ford's Theatre).

DOUGLAS SILLS (Harry Fleming) received Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations for his performance as the title character in The Scarlet Pimpernel on Broadway. Additional Broadway credits include Living on Love opposite Renee Fleming and Little Shop of Horrors (Drama League Award). National tour credits include The Scarlet Pimpernel (Ovation Award), The Addams Family, The Secret Garden and Into the Woods. Off-Broadway credits include My Favorite Year (York Theatre); Lady Be Good, Music in the Air and Carnival (Encores!); On the 20th Century and Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol (The Actors Fund) and Moonlight & Magnolias (Manhattan Theatre Club). Regional theater credits include His Girl Friday (La Jolla Playhouse), Ride the Tiger (Long Wharf Theater), White Noise (Royal George Theatre), Peter Pan (Paper Mill Playhouse), She Loves Me (Westport Country Playhouse), A Little Night Music (Kennedy Center), Much Ado About Nothing (South Coast Repertory), Mack & Mabel (Reprise LA) and numerous leading roles for the California Shakespeare Festival. Ms. Sills has appeared on television in recurring roles on “CSI” and “The Closer,” as well as “Numb3rs,” “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” and “Will & Grace.” Film credits include the upcoming feature Erotic Fire of the Unattainable and Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo. He attended the University of Michigan and the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM

DOUG WRIGHT (Book) earned the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for his play I Am My Own Wife. Other stage works include Grey Gardens (Tony Nomination), The Little Mermaid and Hands on a Hardbody. Film: Quills, based on his Obie-winning play, nominated for three Academy Awards. Television: Tony Bennett: An American Classic, directed by Rob Marshall. Honors: Benjamin Dank Prize, the American Academy of Arts and Letters; Tolerance Prize, Kulturforum Europa; Paul Selvin Award, Writers Guild of America. Professional affiliations: President of the Dramatists Guild; member, Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, board of the New York Theatre Workshop. Wright is married to singer/songwriter David Clement.

SCOTT FRANKEL (Music) was nominated for Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for his work on Grey Gardens, which ran at Playwrights Horizons before moving to Broadway. Since then, the show has been performed regularly across the country as well as internationally. He has also written the music for Far From Heaven (Playwrights Horizons, Williamstown Theatre Festival), Finding Neverland (UK premiere, 2012), Happiness (Lincoln Center Theater), Doll (Ravinia Festival, Richard Rodgers Award) and Meet Mister Future (winner, Global Search for New Musicals), all with lyricist Michael Korie. Frankel is the recipient of the ASCAP Foundation Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award and the Frederick Loewe Award. He was the 2011-2012 Frances & William Schuman Fellow at The MacDowell Colony and is a graduate of Yale University.

MICHAEL KORIE (Lyrics) was nominated for a Tony and received Outer Critics Circle award for his lyrics to Grey Gardens, composer Scott Frankel, book by Doug Wright, directed by Michael Greif, produced at Playwrights Horizons, and subsequently on Broadway, nationally, and abroad. It premieres in January at London’s Southwark Theater. He wrote the lyrics to Far From Heaven with composer Frankel and playwright Richard Greenberg, produced at Williamstown Festival, Playwrights Horizons, and at Chicago’s Porchlight Theater later this season. Also with Frankel, lyrics to Happiness at Lincoln Center Theater, Meet Mister Future at Cardiff Festival, and Doll presented at Ravinia. He co-wrote lyrics with Amy Powers to Doctor Zhivago produced internationally and on Broadway, and is currently collaborating on a new show with Tom Kitt and Donald Marguiles for Disney Theatricals. For opera, Korie adapted Steinbeck’s novel for the libretto to The Grapes of Wrath, composer Ricky Ian Gordon, and created original librettos to operas with composer Stewart Wallace including Harvey Milk, Hopper’s Wife, Where’s Dick? and Kabbalah. Their operas have been produced at San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Minnesota Opera, New York City Opera, BAM Next Wave Festival, Carnegie Hall, and Disney Los Angeles Symphony Hall. Korie’s lyrics have received the Edward Kleban Prize, Jonathan Larson Award, and the ASCAP Richard Rodgers Award. His songs with composer Scott Frankel were featured at The Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage Broadway Today. He serves on the council of The Dramatists Guild, and moderates the Dramatist Guild Musical Theater Fellows Program. Michaelkorie.com.

Director MICHAEL GREIF’s Broadway credits include Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey's Next to Normal and If/Then, as well as Never Gonna Dance, Grey Gardens, Rent, and, upcoming, Dear Evan Hansen. Recent work includes Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, and Steven Levenson’s musical Dear Evan Hansen at off-Broadway’s Second Stage Theatre, Katori Hall’s Our Lady of Kibeho and Angels in America at New York's Signature Theater, the premiere of Kushner's The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide.... at the Public Theater, and The Tempest, Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet at the Public's Delacorte. Regional work includes premieres and revivals at Williamstown (10 seasons), La Jolla Playhouse (Artistic Director 1995-99), Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, Center Stage, Mark Taper Forum, Dallas Theatre Center, and Trinity Rep. Work Off-Broadway includes plays and musicals at the Public Theater, Second Stage, Playwrights Horizons, Roundabout, Manhattan Theatre Club, MCC, Signature, and the New York Theater Workshop, where he is an artistic associate. Education: B.S. Northwestern; M.F.A. UCSD.

CHRISTOPHER GATTELLI’s (Choreography) Broadway credits include Newsies (Tony Award), The King and I (Tony Award nomination), Amazing Grace, South Pacific (Tony and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations), Sunday in the Park with George, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Godspell, The Ritz, Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, 13, High Fidelity and SpongeBob the Musical. Off-Broadway credits include Dogfight (Lucille Lortel Award); Altar Boyz (Lucille Lortel and Calloway Awards, Drama Desk Award nomination); Bat Boy: The Musical (Lucille Lortel Award); tick, tick…BOOM!; 10 Million Miles; Adrift in Macao and I Love You Because. West End and London credits include South Pacific, Sunday in the Park with George and tick, tick…BOOM!. National and international tour credits include Newsies, Altar Boyz, Godspell, Grease and Pooh’s Perfect Day (world premiere by Disney Theatricals). He also choreographed South Pacific and the upcoming My Fair Lady at the Sydney Opera House. Regional credits include Little Miss Sunshine (La Jolla Playhouse), Me and My Girl and O Henry’s Lovers (Goodspeed Opera House) and Tom Jones (North Shore Music Theatre). He directed and choreographed SILENCE! The Musical (Time Magazine’s Top 10 of 2011) off-Broadway, the world premiere of Jim Henson’s Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas and Radio Girl (Goodspeed Opera House), Departure Lounge (The Public Theater and New York Stage and Film’s Summer Series) and In Your Arms (New York Stage and Film and The Old Globe).

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