Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Tony Award winner Victoria Clark will return to Broadway in October 2017 with the new musical Madame Sousatzka based on the 1988 film starring Shirley MacLaine.
The production will also feature Tony Award winner Judy Kaye and Tony nominee Montego Glover. Clark, who recently made her New York Musical Festival directorial debut with Newton's Cradle, is cast in the title role of the stern Russian piano player and teacher, the part created on film by MacLaine, who won a Golden Globe for her performance. Clark won her Tony for The Light in the Piazza. She was most recently on Broadway in a Tony-nominated performance in the revival of Gigi.
The part of her young student will be played by Jordan Barrow.
No Broadway theatre or specific dates were announced.
The production will also mark the Broadway return of Garth Drabinsky, who served 18 months in a Canadian jail for fraud connected with the collapse of his production company, Livent.
The Toronto-based producer had developed the show in a June 7-July 17 workshop there that featured a number of Broadway veterans, including Clark.
As previously reported, the show will try out at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre. Newly-announced dates are: February 25-April 9, 2017, with an opening night planned for March 23. Tickets for the Toronto tryout will go on sale, via Ticketmaster on October 17.
Madame Sousatzka features a score by Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire, whose Broadway credits include Baby and Big as well as the Off-Broadway revues Starting Here, Starting Now and Closer Than Ever.
The musical has a book by Craig Lucas. It is directed by Adrian Noble, with choreography by Graciela Daniele. Also on the Broadway creative team: Anthony Ward (sets), Paul Tazwell (costumes), Howell Binkley (lighting), Jonathan Driscoll (projections), Martin Levan (sound), Jonathan Tunick (orchestrations), David Caddick (music supervision), Brad Haak (music director), Lebo M. (additional music and vocal arrangements) and Marius de Vries (additional music arrangements).
For more information, visit www.SousatzkaMusical.com.
Drabinsky and Livent are known for a slate of lavish Broadway productions including Kiss of the Spider Woman, Ragtime, Show Boat, Candide, Fosse and Parade. But because of his unanswered U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission indictment in the States, Drabinsky risks arrest if he comes to the U.S., so he will take the title ”creative producer” and leave the operation of the Broadway production to a group called Teatro Proscenium Limited Partnership, which announced the production September 27.
Teatro Proscenium CEO Richard Stursberg issued a statement saying, “To be able to present this remarkable creative team, and cast, and the musical work of one of the best creative producers of our age, is a gift. My association with Garth has proven itself to be one of the most satisfying and enduring creative relationships I’ve ever had, and I look forward to ensuring that he has every resource available to get this inspired show to Broadway, and beyond.”
By Robert Viagas for www.playbill.com.
Illustration: Poster art for Sousatzka with images of Victoria Clark and Montego Glover.
2016-09-28
Toronto: Drabinsky-produced musical "Sousatzka" will open in Toronto in spring 2017