Summer Festival benefit will feature Patti LuPone

AP FILE PHOTO

Patti LuPone backstage during the opening Broadway run of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard.'

Summer Festival benefit will feature Patti LuPone

Patti LuPone, the acclaimed diva of “Evita,” “Sunset Boulevard” and “Les Miserables,” will join the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra Feb. 17 at University of Michigan’s Hill Auditorium in a benefit concert for the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, AASF organizers announced Tuesday.

“It’s quite a coup; we’re very excited,” said Rachel DiFrancisco, publicist for the annual summer festival, which presents three weeks of diverse performance events and movies on the U-M campus each June and July.

Best known for portraying the original title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mega-hit musicals “Evita” (for which she won a Tony and Drama Desk Award in 1980) and leading lady Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard," LuPone also is known for movie roles in “Witness,” “Driving Miss Daisy” and “Witness,” as well as for her role as Libby Thatcher in the long-running TV series “Life Goes On.” AASF organizers will offer a full evening for the fund-raising event.

In addition to LuPone’s concert at 8 p.m., patrons can attend a pre-concert “Off-Broad-wav Partv” at 6 p.m., in the Trueblood Theatre in the U-M Frieze Building, 105 S. State St. Catered by Cousins' Heritage Inn, the party will also be the occasion for announcing the full lineup of performers at the 1996 Summer Festival and for the unveiling of the festival poster, a popular seller each year. In addition, a Dessert Afterglow is available after the show at Hill Auditorium, 825 N. University Ave.

Ticket reservations will go on sale Monday in various packages. Only the Off-Broadway Benefit Ticket package ($125) includes priority concert seating, party and afterglow. The Leading Lady package ($50) offers preferred seating and includes a $15 tax-deductible donation to the AASF.

Principal Seats on the main floor of Hill are $35. Understudy Seats in the first balcony are $30. Chorus Seats in the front of the second balcony are $25 ($15 for students, limit two), and Gaffer Seats in the rear of the second balcony are $15.

Reservations will be accepted by phone through the Ann Arbor Summer Festival Office at 747-2278. The box office itself will open to the public on Jan. 12.