by Webmaster | Jan 5, 2020 | New Musical News Feed
Tony winner Paulo Szot and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Erika Jayne join the Broadway production of Chicago beginning January 6 at the Ambassador Theatre.
Opera star Szot steps into the role of Billy Flynn for a four-week run through January 31. He begins his engagement the same day singer/reality star Jayne makes her Broadway debut as Roxie Hart. Szot will later return to the company for a nine-week run March 16–May 19.
Szot made his Broadway debut as Emile de Becque in Lincoln Center Theater’s South Pacific in 2008, winning Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Theatre World Awards for his performance. He has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Scala di Milano, Paris Opera, Teatro Real (Madrid), London’s Barbican, and more.
Jayne is the latest star from the Real Housewives franchise to step into the long-running musical, following Atlanta’s NeNe Leakes and Kandi Burruss and Beverly Hills’ Lisa Rinna (albeit five years before joining the series). In addition to the Bravo series, Jayne’s television oeuvre includes Dancing With the Stars, The Young and the Restless, and Lip Sync Battle.
Jayne and Szot are joined onstage by by Amra-Faye Wright as Velma Kelly, Raymond Bokhour as Amos Hart, NaTasha Yvette Williams as Matron “Mama” Morton, and R. Lowe as Mary Sunshine.
See What Else Is Coming to Broadway in the Near Future
With a book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse, music by John Kander and lyrics by Ebb, Chicago is now the longest-running American musical in Broadway history. Produced by Barry and Fran Weissler, the staging is the winner of six 1997 Tony Awards including Best Musical Revival and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Cast Recording.
Directed by Tony winner Walter Bobbie and choreographed by Tony winner Ann Reinking, Chicago features set design by John Lee Beatty, costume design by Tony winner William Ivey Long, lighting design by Tony winner Ken Billington, sound design by Scott Lehrer, and casting by Stewart/Whitley.
Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Erika Jayne Meet the Press Aead of Broadway Debut in Chicago
Szot has been a special guest performer on Playbill Travel’s Broadway on the High Seas cruises. Cabins are now on sale for Broadway in the Great Northwest, Playbill Travel’s first domestic cruise featuring Kate Baldwin, Tedd Firth, Aaron Lazar, Beth Leavel, and Faith Prince (April 26–May 4, 2020), and for Broadway on the Mediterranean (August 31–September 7, 2020), featuring Audra McDonald, Will Swenson, Gavin Creel, Caissie Levy and Lindsay Mendez, and for Broadway on the Nile (December 27, 2020–January 7, 2021) and Broadway on the Caribbean (February 15–22, 2021), with performers soon to be announced. To book a suite or stateroom, call Playbill Travel at 866-455-6789 or visit PlaybillTravel.com.
(Updated January 6, 2020)
by Webmaster | Jan 4, 2020 | New Musical News Feed
On the red carpet at the BAFTAs, Variety chatted with members of the creative team behind Frozen 2, including directors Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, as well as producer Peter Del Vecho. The question came up of a potential for a third film in the series.
by Webmaster | Jan 4, 2020 | New Musical News Feed
Since childhood, Alexandra Billings has longed to travel over the rainbow. Like many LGBTQ youth, she saw her journey in Dorothy’s, ill-suited for sepia-toned Kansas and thrown into a technicolor landscape. She learned to empathize with the Wicked Witch of the West, unjustly maligned after the untimely loss.
But despite her Oz obsession—or perhaps because of it—Billings has never seen Wicked. “I don’t know what I was thinking. They’re going to take away my transgender card,” she jokes. “I hold The Wizard of Oz in high esteem, so when it came out, I was suspicious.” Now, she has the chance not only to see it, but live it, taking over the role of Madame Morrible beginning January 20.
“A hero is never a pure hero unless there are villainous attributes,” she says, clarifying her familiarity with the musical’s premise. “We are born out of a chaotic universe, which is full of darkness and light. Elphaba and Glinda are both of those things. Madame Morrible is certainly both of those things.”
Though Morrible’s grand malapropisms (and wigs) elicit laughs, her darkness becomes the driving force behind Elphaba’s persecution. Still, her duality “makes perfect sense” to Billings.
“It truly is our story,” she says. “Being a mixed race trans person, I live in a world that continues to be a place for a specific kind of person. My whole life has been about survival and trying to be seen in a world that does not acknowledge my existence. For me, that’s true of Morrible. She has risen in a way no other ‘otherized’ human has, and she recognizes Elphaba from the beginning: ‘There’s something in this human I need to tap into so that we can survive.’”
The Transparent alum, who appeared on Broadway last season in The Nap, makes history as the first openly trans performer to play Morrible, on the heels of Pose’s Mj Rodriguez claiming a similar distinction as Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors. Neither role was written explicitly as trans, but that doesn’t mean they’re cisgender. “You have to look at the history of theatre,” Billings reasons. “Art was not the reflection of the human experience; it was the reflection of the male experience.”
Rather than allow that to limit the roles available to her, she asserts: “I couldn’t care less about their history. Trans or not, if I’m playing the role, it’s going to be trans, because I’m trans. Times change and humanity changes. What we’ve learned is that art is the reflection of the human experience.”
Billings is ready to bring her experience to her beloved Oz: “I love this world. It makes sense to me; it always has.”
Truly, there’s no place like home.
by Webmaster | Jan 3, 2020 | New Musical News Feed
A Contemporary Theatre (ACT) of Connecticut will present a modernized, re-imagined interpretation of Stephen Schwartz’s Godspell February 6–March 8.
Directed by Danny White, the cast will feature Jaime Cepero (Smash), Florrie Bagel (The Rose Tattoo), Katie Ladner (Wicked), Andrew Poston (Kinky Boots), Trent Saunders (Evita), and Emma Tattenbaum-Fine (Netflix’s Explained).
ACT Founder and Artistic Director Daniel C. Levine’s concept for this production followed the April 2019 burning of Paris’ famed Notre Dame Cathedral. Says Levine, “I thought to myself, what if I set the ACT of CT production in an abandoned church? What if this church was in midtown Manhattan and was slated to be demolished tomorrow to make room for condominiums? What if nobody had stepped foot in this condemned holy place for a decade, save for a group of homeless who had been squatting there for six months?”
Schwartz gave Levine permission to alter the show, including removing the song “Tower of Babble.”
Conceived and originally directed by John-Michael Tebelak with music and lyrics by Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin), Godspell‘s Tony-nominated score features “Day by Day,” “Turn Back, O Man,” “Learn Your Lessons Well, “Prepare Ye the Way,” and “Light of the World.”
The upcoming production will also have choreography by Sara Brians, scenic design by Reid Thompson, costume design by Brenda Phelps, and lighting design by Jack Mehler.
Visit ACTofCT.org.
Production Photos: Godspell on Broadway
by Webmaster | Jan 3, 2020 | New Musical News Feed
If we’re being honest, we can probably count on one hand the number of viewers who went to see Tom Hooper’s ill-advised movie version of Cats for the music. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music has never really been the appeal of Cats it’s always been the visuals and the brand more than anything that allowed it to become an iconic piece of theatre pop culture. As you probably expect, the soundtrack for the movie does very little new, but dutifully recreates the score with a talented all-star cast.
by Webmaster | Dec 30, 2019 | New Musical News Feed
According to Variety, the new Cats film is expected to suffer a 100 million loss, after making just 38 million globally in its first two weeks in theaters.
