SOUTH PACIFIC Tour to Launch at SF's Golden Gate Theatre 9/2009

SHN will present the all-new production of the Lincoln Center prize-winning musical classic Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific at the Golden Gate Theatre in September 2009. Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific swept the 2007-2008 theater awards winning 7 Tony Awards including Best Musical Revival as well as the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Drama League Award for Best Musical Revival, and is directed by Bay Area native Bartlett Sher. Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific replaces the previously announced production of EVER AFTER in the Best of Broadway series. Plans for the World Premiere of EVER AFTER have been indefinitely postponed. Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific, which is produced by Lincoln Center Theater in association with Bob Boyett and NETworks Productions, is presented as the final production of the 2008-2009 Citibank Best of Broadway series season under the direction of Carole Shorenstein Hays. This production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific will begin its national tour following the San Francisco engagement.

"SHN is privileged to present Lincoln Center's celebrated Tony Award-winning new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific," said SHN President Carole Shorenstein Hays. "Lincoln Center is the country's most prestigious producing organization, setting the national standard for artistic excellence. There is no better enduring partner for SHN. We have nurtured the national tours of Lincoln Center's Contact and The Light in the Piazza, and we look forward to reuniting with our colleagues from Lincoln Center and hosting the entire creative team for South Pacific."

In a joint statement Lincoln Center Theater Artistic Director Andre Bishop and Executive Producer Bernard Gersten said: "We couldn't be more pleased to be opening the national tour of, Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific at the Golden Gate Theatre. After the great success we've had there with our productions of Contact and The Light in the Piazza we consider San Francisco, with its theatre-savvy audiences, to be our lucky city. We look forward to coming back and working once again with SHN on this new production."

Based on James Michener's Pulitzer Prize winning book Tales of the South Pacific, Rodgers Hammerstein's South Pacific has music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan. Set on a tropical island during World War II, the musical tells the sweeping romantic story of two couples -- US Navy nurse Nellie Forbush & French plantation owner Emile de Becque and Navy Airman Joe Cable & a young local native girl Liat -- and how their happiness is threatened by the realities of the war and by their own prejudices. Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific premiered at the Majestic Theatre on April 7, 1949 and went on to enjoy a five year Broadway run winning countless awards including nine Tony Awards including Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Considered by many the finest musical ever written, the score's songs include such musical theater classics as Some Enchanted Evening, Younger Than Springtime, Bali Ha'i, There is Nothin' Like A Dame and A Wonderful Guy.

This new production features a cast of 40 with musical staging by Christopher Gattelli, sets by Michael Yeargan, costumes by Catherine Zuber, lighting by Donald Holder, sound by Scott Lehrer and music direction by Ted Sperling. An orchestra of more than 20 will perform the original orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett and dance and incidental music arranged by Trude Rittmann.

Bay Area native, BARLETT SHER (Director) will come home to San Francisco, where he recently directed the national tour of the Lincoln Center Theater's production of The Light in the Piazza as part of the SHN Best of Broadway 2006-2007 season. Mr. Sher has an ongoing relationship with the Lincoln Center Theater where he directed the Tony Award winning production of the Craig Lucas-Adam Guettel musical The Light in the Piazza and the Tony Award winning Best Revival of the Clifford Odets' classic Awake and Sing!, earning Tony Award nominations as Best Director for both productions. Last season he directed a critically acclaimed new production of Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia for the Metropolitan Opera, which has just returned to the MET's repertory. The Artistic Director of Seattle's Intiman Theatre, his other New York credits include the Theatre for A New Audiences productions of Waste, Cymbeline (the first American Shakespeare production presented in London by the RSC for which he received the 2001 Callaway Award for Best Direction as well as Lortel and Drama Desk nominations), Don Juan and Pericles.

To experience what goes on backstage at SHN shows, go to http://shnsf.com/podcast/index.asp and listen to Backstage, the SHN podcast series, to hear interviews with members of the creative teams or actors for all SHN productions.

Tickets for South Pacific are currently only available by subscribing to the 2008-2009 Best of Broadway season by calling (415) 551-2050 or visiting www.shnsf.com.

SHN is the pre-eminent theatrical entertainment company in San Francisco and owns and operates the Curran, Orpheum and Golden Gate Theatres-San Francisco's premier theatrical venues. SHN's Best of Broadway theater series provides Bay Area audiences with pre-Broadway world premieres, original Broadway cast productions, award-winners and current hits fresh from Broadway. For information on all SHN shows, please visit shnsf.com.

BARLETT SHER (Director) returns to Lincoln Center Theater where he directed the Tony Award winning production of the Craig Lucas-Adam Guettel musical The Light in the Piazza and the Tony Award winning Best Revival of the Clifford Odets' classic Awake and Sing!, earning Tony Award nominations as Best Director for both productions. Last season he directed a critically acclaimed new production of Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia for the Metropolitan Opera, which has just returned to the MET's repertory. The Artistic Director of Seattle's Intiman Theatre, his other New York credits include the Theatre for A New Audiences productions of Waste, Cymbeline (the first American Shakespeare production presented in London by the RSC for which he received the 2001 Callaway Award for Best Direction as well as Lortel and Drama Desk nominations), Don Juan and Pericles.