Burke, Broadway-bound? PEOPLE sure thinks so! Former Dancing With The Stars champion Cheryl Burke is in discussion to make her Broadway debut in the Tony-winning musical Chicago this winter.
“It’s always been a dream of Cheryl’s to perform on Broadway,” a theater tipster told PEOPLE on Wednesday. Cheryl, who is up for the lead role of Roxie Hart in the long-running production, would appear in a limited engagement while DWTS is in the off-season. “She’s excited to show off her other talents besides being a good dancer. She’s been vocally trained and she has a great voice.”
Cheryl was elminated from the ninth season of Dancing With The Stars last month after her celebrity partner, Texas republican Tom DeLay, bowed out of the competition with a season-ending injury.
An advocacy group for people with disabilities is raining all over Little Miss Sunshine.
Abigail Breslin, the Academy Award-nominated star of the 2006 cinema gem Little Miss Sunshine, is set to play Helen Keller in her Broadway debut next March, but not everyone is happy about it. Breslin, 13, has been cast as the deaf-blind Keller in a stage revival of William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker, producer David Richenthal said Wednesday. However, activists with Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, an advocacy group representing blind and deaf actors, take issue with Abigail’s casting.
The group insist an accurate potrayal of Keller’s life requires the skills of an actress who shares her disabilities. On Thursday, executive director Sharon Jensen told The New York Times that she is opposed to Breslin’s Helen Keller casting:
“We do not think it’s OK for reputable producers to cast this lead role without seriously considering an actress from our community. I understand how difficult it is to capitalize a new production on Broadway, but that to me is not the issue. There are other, larger human and artistic issues at stake here.”
Scarlett Johansson will make her Broadway debut opposite Liev Schreiber in a revival of playwright Arthur Miller’s stage drama “A View from the Bridge,” show producers announced on Monday.
ScarJo, 24, will appear on the Great White Way in the drama set in 1950s America about a Brooklyn dockyard worker obsessed with his 17-year-old niece, played by Johansson.
Preview December 28 and the show is expected to run for 14 weeks.
Other high-profile film actor’s appearing on Broadway this year include Jude law, Hugh Jackman, Daniel Craig, Sienna Miller, and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
The ’60s will live again on Broadway in a Spring revival of Promises, Promises, the musical based on the Oscar-winning movie The Apartment.
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Groundbreaking ’90s pop band The Spice Girls are launching their own TV talent show which would select young girls for a musical based on the group’s rise to fame. The Spice Girls want to turn their story into a musical and are anxious to have a hand in selecting a cast to do just that.
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Time to dim the lights on this ogre. After a nearly year-long run, Broadway’s Shrek The Musical will close on January 3.
On Wednesday, DreamWorks Theatricals producer Bill Damaschke announed that Shrek The Musical will close early next year after a 441-performance run. A national tour kicks off at The Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago in July. The show opened last December to mixed reviews.
Shrek, based on Dreamworks’ smash animated film franchise and the characters in William Steig’s book, has seen its weekly grosses dwindle since the end of summer, according to reports.
So You Think You Can Dance judge Adam Shankman has signed on to produce and direct the big screen adaptation of the Tony-nominated Broadway musical Rock of Ages — starring Constantine Maroulis and Amy Spanger.
Variety says Shankman, who directed the 2007 comedy remake Hairspray, is plotting a boisterous production that is expected to slam into theaters in 2011.
“I had the best time of my life making Hairspray and badly wanted another musical, and when I watched ‘Rock of Ages,’ I was struck by the fact that not only had much of the audience seen it more than once, every guy in the audience knew the words to the songs,” Adam told Variety Tuesday. “What an extraordinary opportunity to open the genre to an audience that otherwise wouldn’t go see a musical…..I’m thinking big, and absolutely am going to attempt to cast with movie stars. Now that musicals are working again, actors are much more open to it.”
Ashton Kutcher will make his Broadway debut next month in The 24 Hour Plays - the Twitter king will star in a production written and rehearsed in a single day.
The former That 70s Show prankster is among an ensemble of actors, writers and directors who will produce six short plays for the ninth annual event.
The production will raise money for Rosie Perez’ Urban Arts Partnership, an organization that brings arts education programs into New York City public schools. Rosie revealed Ashton’s involvement on The Wendy Williams Show Monday.
“I’m going to break the news here. I know the producer’s going to be pissed off at me. We are going to have a wonderful actor making his Broadway debut November 9th – and that’s Ashton Kutcher.”
The Broadway revival of musical Bye Bye Birdie has been panned by New York’s theater critics – who have dubbed the John Stamos and Gina Gershon-starring revenue “boneheaded.”
Ouch.
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The Spice Girls are bringing their story to the stage in a two-hour musical described as a “pop extravaganza”
This is almost as bad as another reunion tour!
Insiders claim Geri Halliwell a.k.a. Ginger Spice is producing the theatrical version of the band’s rise to fame as the most successful girl group of the 1990s. Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton, and Victoria Beckham will also help select the actresses playing them.
“The project is Geri’s baby really but all the girls are backing it,” a tipster tells The Mirror. “The idea is for five relatively unknown actresses to take the parts and hopefully the girls will each have a say in who is cast,” the source added.
