Gala Benefit
All-Star Cast Joins Ravinia to Celebrate Stephen Sondheim's 80th Birthday at 2010 Gala Benefit Evening
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Ravinia Festival’s 2010 Gala Benefit Evening will honor the 80th birthday of the great American composer Stephen Sondheim with a program featuring an incredible lineup of soloists who have been featured in Ravinia’s Sondheim celebrations since they began in 2001. The evening reunites the on-stage and behind-the-scenes talent that created Ravinia’s acclaimed productions of Sondheim’s shows, several of which have gone onto other cities. This evening of Sondheim’s “greatest hits,” starring Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, George Hearn and Michael Cerveris, will take place on Saturday, July 31, 2010. Conductor Paul Gemignani will lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Lonny Price will direct. The program will include highlights from past Ravinia Festival presentations of Sondheim shows including Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Passion, Sunday in the Park with George, Anyone Can Whistle, West Side Story and Gypsy.
Hosted by the Ravinia Women’s Board, the annual Gala Benefit Evening is the only performance fundraiser benefiting the not-for-profit festival, including its REACH. TEACH. PLAY. education and community partnership initiatives. This special black-tie event will begin with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres on the lawn at 5 p.m. Guests will then be escorted to the 7 p.m. performance, which will have no intermission. Immediately following the concert, dinner will be served in the Gala Marquee on the north lawn. The 2010 Gala Benefit Evening is being overseen by the Women’s Board committee headed by Gala Co-chairmen Marcie Stein and Susan Elliot.
Jane D. Casper is the Women’s Board chairman.
Tickets for the black-tie Women’s Board Gala dinner, including priority seating for the concert, are available to individual benefactors for $750. Tables of 10 are sold at tiered prices from $7,500 to $50,000. For more information or to purchase tickets to the benefit dinner, please call 847-266-5045 or email gala@ravinia.org. Ravinia Festival is a not-for-profit organization.
Concert only tickets will go on sale spring, 2010 through the Box Office.