Celebrating
Stephen Sondheim’s
91st Birthday

Ted Sperling, piano and host

Ted Sperling has maintained an active and successful career in the theater and concert worlds for 35 years. A multi-faceted artist, he is a director, music director, conductor, orchestrator, singer, pianist, violinist and violist. He is the Artistic Director of MasterVoices and was Music Director of the recent Broadway production of My Fair Lady, now starting a national tour.

A Tony Award winner for his orchestrations of The Light in the Piazza, Sperling is known for his work across many genres, including opera, oratorio, musical theater, symphony and pops. His concert of Carole King songs can be seen on the new PBS channel, AllArts, and his production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I can be seen on PBS. He earned rapturous reviews for his production of Lady in the Dark with MasterVoices at NY City Center this past April and for Let ‘Em Eat Cake at Carnegie Hall.

Sperling recently appeared as Steve Allen in the final episode of Season Two of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Scarlett Strallen

Scarlett Strallen performs with symphonies all over the world and has been requested by her Majesty the Queen on three separate occasions to sing for her. Her most recent theater credits include the title role in Nell Gwynn at Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Gwendolyn in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties at The American Airlines Theater on Broadway.

Strallen’s other theater credits include Amalia in She Loves Me at The Menier Chocolate Factory, Titania in A Midsummer Nights Dream at Hartford Stage, Mabel in Pirates of Penzance at Barrington Stage, Sibella in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder at The Walter Kerr Theate, Lady Macduff in Kenneth Branagh’s Macbeth at the Armory in New York, Cunegonde in Candide at the Menier Chocolate Factory, Cassie in A Chorus Line at The London Palladium, Kathy Selden in Singin in the Rain at The Palace Theatre London (Olivier Award Nomination for Best Actress in a Musical), Clara in Passion at Donmar Warehouse, and the title role in Mary Poppins at the New Amsterdam Theater on Broadway, a role she also played in the West End and at The Capitol Theatre in Sydney. 

Betsy Wolfe

Betsy Wolfe has established herself as one of the most versatile and keenly intelligent Broadway performers of her generation. She recently finished starring in the Tony nominated musical Waitress, where she gave a multi-faceted performance as Jenna, a woman struggling in an abusive relationship. Prior to that, she played Cordelia, one of the lovable “lesbians from next door,” in the Broadway revival of Falsettos, directed by James Lapine, which recently aired on PBS. She is perhaps best known for her critically acclaimed performance as Cathy in the Off-Broadway revival of The Last Five Years — but more on that in a minute. 

Originally from California, Wolfe received her BFA in musical theatre from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. At age 20 — prior to graduation — she made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra under Maestro Erich Kunzel. After receiving her BFA, she quickly moved on to star as Rona Lisa Peretti in the San Francisco and Boston companies of The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Soon after, she made her Broadway debut in the revival of 110 in the Shade. Wolfe gained attention for her next role in both the Off-Broadway and Broadway productions of Sherie Rene Scott’s Everyday Rapture, where she played one of the two Menonettes. 

Wolfe’s casting in Everyday Rapture would prove prescient as, only a few years later, she would be Scott’s successor in one of contemporary musical theatre’s most challenging and well-known roles: Cathy in Second Stage Theater’s revival of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years. Critics and audiences alike lauded her complex and idiosyncratic performance in the two-person musical. 

Wolfe’s other Broadway credits include Ellen in the 2014 production of Bullets Over Broadway, directed by Susan Stroman, and Rosa Bud in the revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. A few blocks east of Broadway, she appeared as Beth in the City Center Encores! production of Merrily We Roll Along. And on the west coast, she starred in the La Jolla Playhouse world premiere production of Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez’s new musical Up Here, and created the role of Mary Ann Singleton in ACT’s world premiere of Tales of the City, a musical based on the Armistead Maupin novels.

In 2013, Wolfe made her Metropolitan Opera debut in Douglas Carter Beane’s adaptation of Die Fledermaus. She has been a guest artist for over 40 symphony, pops, and philharmonic orchestras across the U.S. and internationally, including the New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  Recently, she has collaborated with The New York Pops and played to sold-out crowds at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center with their Broadway Today and Women of Notes concerts. 

She can be heard on the recordings of Falsettos, Bullets over Broadway, The Last Five Years, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Everyday Rapture, Stage Door Canteen, 35MM, and Merrily We Roll Along. She can also be seen in the film adaptation of The Last Five Years where she plays a stripper, with a snake named Wayne. 

Wolfe lives in New York with her husband Adam Krauthamer. She likes cats and, according to The New York Times, she has a rock collection. 

Bryce Pinkham

Bryce Pinkham is a Grammy and Tony nominated American stage and screen actor. He is perhaps best known for originating the role of Monty Navarro in the Broadway production of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, for which he earned him a Grammy Award nomination and a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. Pinkham also starred in the Broadway revival of The Heidi Chronicles as Peter Patrone, for which he was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award, and in Holiday Inn, in the role originally played by Bing Crosby in the classic 1942 movie. He has appeared on numerous television shows including Mercy Street, The Good Wife, and Person of Interest.

Pinkham is a co-founder of Zara Aina, a non-profit organization devoted to helping at-risk children expand their capacity for achievement through theatrical performance and storytelling. He also performs with the theatre company Outside the Wire, which takes performances of Greek tragedy to American-military audiences around the world to foster discussion about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and soldier suicide. 

Ben Davis

Ben Davis was recently seen as Cpt. Von Trapp in Jack O’Brien’s tour of The Sound of Music on Broadway. His credits include Violet (Preacher), A Little Night Music (Mr. Lindquist, u/s Carl Magnus, Fredrik), Les Misérables (Javert & Enjolras), Thoroughly Modern Millie (Trevor Graydon), Baz Luhrmann’s La Boheme (Marcello, a 2003 Tony Honor) UK: BBC Proms Kiss Me Kate at Royal Albert Hall (Fred/Petruchio), and Sondheim at 85 with RTÉ Orchestra. 

Other credits include South Pacific (Emile De Becque) and Oklahoma (Curly) at The MUNY, Anna Nicole the Opera at BAM (Billy Smith), R&H with the Boston Pops at Tanglewood, Lincoln Center American Songbook Series, Kurt Weill’s Knickerbocker Holiday (Brom Broeck) opposite Kelli O’Hara and Victor Garber, Westchester Philharmonic with Kelli O’Hara, Show Boat (Gaylord Ravenal) at Goodspeed Opera House, LA Philharmonic. 

Davis has also appeard in film and on television as Papageno in Mozart’s The Magic Flute directed by Kenneth Branagh and the film version of Samuel Barber’s A Hand of Bridge.