My Fair Lady

24 / 68

P R O F I L E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O
22 | April - May, 2017
ALAN JAY LERNER
(Book and Lyrics) wrote
these musicals with Fred-
erick Loewe: Life of the
Party, What’s Up, The Day
Before Spring, Brigadoon,
Paint Your Wagon, My Fair
Lady, Camelot, and Gigi.
He also wrote Love Life
with Kurt Weill, On A Clear Day You Can
See Forever and Carmelina with Burton Lane,
Coco with André Previn, 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue with Leonard Bernstein, and Dance a
Little Closer with Charles Strouse. He wrote
the libretto and/or lyrics for the following
films: An American in Paris, Gigi, The Little
Prince, The Royal Wedding, and film versions
of his plays. He wrote two books – On the
Street Where I Live and The Musical Theatre:
A Celebration. Lerner died in 1986.
FREDERICK LOEWE
(Music), a child prodigy
at four, made his concert
debut on the piano with
the Berlin Philharmonic at
13. He came to America
in 1923. In 1942, Loewe
approached Alan Jay
Lerner in New York and
said he would like to collaborate with him
on a musical show. The two went on to enjoy
a notable partnership resulting in the stage
musicals The Day Before Spring, Brigadoon,
Paint Your Wagon, My Fair Lady, and Camelot,
and the films Gigi and The Little Prince, as well
as the stage version of Gigi. Loewe died on
February 14, 1988 at 88, the winner of several
Tony and Oscar awards.
RICHARD E. GRANT*
(Henry Higgins) is recog-
nized internationally as one
of the great performers of
his generation. The actor
initially achieved renown as
the perpetually inebriated
title character in his first
film, Withnail and I, which
has since established a large cult following.
Some of Grant’s most memorable film credits
include Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Henry & June,
L.A. Story, Corpse Bride, Penelope, The Player,
The Age of Innocence, The Portrait of a Lady ,
Spice World, Gosford Park, and The Iron Lady.
He has countless television credits, including
featured roles on Girls, Jekyll & Hyde, Dig,
Downton Abbey, and Game of Thrones. In
2008, Grant performed the role of Henry
Higgins/My Fair Lady with Opera Australia in
Sydney. In addition to Jackie starring Natalie
Portman, he can be seen in other recent films,
including the romantic comedy Their Finest and
Logan, the latest installment in the X-Men series.
A native of Swaziland, Grant studied at the
University of Cape Town and was a member
of the Space Theatre Company in Cape Town
before moving to London in 1982.
LISA O’HARE* (Eliza
Doolittle) was originally
trained at the Royal
Ballet School as a ballet
dancer. The singer-actress
performed in London at
Sadler’s Wells and the
Royal Opera House,
Covent Garden, before
making the transition to musical theater. Most
recently she earned impressive critical praise
originating the role of Sibella Hallward/ A
Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder that
showed on Broadway. O’Hare has played
the title role/ Mary Poppins in Australia, on
the U.K. tour, and at Prince Edward Theatre
in London; Eliza Doolittle on the U. S. and
U. K. national tours of My Fair Lady (receiving
the Elliot Norton and Denver Post Ovation
Award); the title role/ Gigi at London’s Regent’s
Park Open-Air Theatre; and Sally Bowles/
Cabaret for the Reprise Theatre Company
in Los Angeles. She has numerous television
credits, including roles in Castle, The Closer,
and Undercovers. O’Hare’s performance as
Sally Bowles/Cabaret for the Reprise Theatre
Company won the 2011 LA Drama Critics
Circle Award for Lead Performance.
NICHOLAS LE PREVOST*
(Colonel Pickering) was
nominated for a 2002
Olivier Award for his
performance in My Fair
Lady at the Royal National
Theatre and Theatre Royal-
Drury Lane as well as in
1992 for George Feydeau’s
An Absolute Turkey (for which he won the
Clarence Derwent Award). Recent successes
include a critically acclaimed production of
Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Winter Solstice and
two Sheridan plays (Love for Love, Royal
Shakespeare Company and The Rivals, Arcola
Theatre). Other major achievements range
stylistically from Much Ado About Nothing
(Royal Shakespeare Company), Man and
Superman (Royal National Theatre), Tom
Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound, and
Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The Critic (both
at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester) to most
recently Alan Ayckbourn’s How the Other Half
Loves (London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket).
Since 2003, Le Prevost has portrayed Georges
Simenon’s fictional detective Jules Maigret
for BBC Radio. He is the founder of The
Wrestling School, a theater company that
explores the relationship between language,
performer, and audience through the work of
Howard Barker.
DONALD MAXWELL*
(Alfred P. Doolittle), the
celebrated British baritone,
has appeared with the
Royal Opera, English
National Opera, Welsh
National Opera, Scottish
Opera, Glyndebourne, and
all the other major British
companies, as well as the Met, La Scala,
Vienna State Opera, and the leading houses
of Paris, Brussels, Berlin, and Zurich. His
repertoire of nearly 100 roles ranges from Don
Pasquale and Falstaff to the Dutchman and
Wozzeck, along with major roles of Rossini,
Donizetti, Massenet, Janáček, Puccini,
Stravinsky, and Britten. Engagements this
season include Tosca (Royal Opera), Iain Bell’s
In Parenthesis (world premiere, Welsh National
Opera), and The Marriage of Figaro (Scottish
Opera). In addition to DVDs including La
fille du régiment, La bohème , (both from the
Royal Opera) and Pelléas et Mélisande (Welsh
National Opera), he has amassed a highly
varied discography. Maxwell has held several
prestigious posts, including artistic director of
the Buxton Festival, director of the National
Opera Studio, and head of opera studies at the
Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
BRYCE PINKHAM*
(Freddy Eynsford-Hill) is
most widely known for
originating the role of
Monty Navarro in the
Tony-winning musical
A Gentleman’s Guide
to Love and Murder on
Broadway, for which
he was nominated for Tony, Grammy, and
Drama Desk awards. He appeared in the
Broadway revival of The Heidi Chronicles as
Peter Patrone, for which he was nominated for
an Outer Critics Circle Award and a Drama
League Award for Distinguished Performance
in 2015. His other Broadway credits include
the lead role of Jim/Holiday Inn , Carl Bruner/
Ghost, the Musical and Henry Clay/Bloody
Bloody Andrew Jackson. His latest onscreen
appearances include Baz Luhrmann’s Netflix
series The Get Down , Robert De Niro’s The
Comedian, and as a series regular on PBS’s
Civil War drama series Mercy Street. His
*Lyric debut