Barbour is a veteran of Broadway's Beauty and the Beast, Assassins and Jane Eyre, among other shows.

In recent days it leaked out that Derek Keeling, a competitor on the TV audition series, "Grease: You're the One That I Want," will play Charles Darnay in Jill Santoriello's lush new musical based on the 1849 Dickens novel. Pre-Broadway performances will play Oct. 13-Nov. 18 at Asolo Repertory Theatre's Mertz Theatre in Sarasota, FL. Two opening nights are planned there — Oct. 26 and 27.

Principal casting will also include Jessica Rush as Lucie Manette, Natalie Toro as Madame Defarge, Joe Cassidy as Ernest Defarge, Michael Hayward-Jones as Jarvis Lorry, Craig Bennett as Jerry Cruncher, Nick Wyman as John Barsad, Katherine McGrath as Miss Pross, Alex Santoriello as Dr. Manette with Kevin Greene as Gabelle, Tim Hartman as The Turnkey, Jodie Langel as Mrs. Cruncher, Jay Lusteck as Attorney General, Les Minski as Marquis St. Evremonde, Walter Oneil as Cronie, Rob Richardson as Gaspard, Rebecca Robbins as Vengeance, Wayne Schroder as C.J. Stryver and Janine DiVita as a Young French Woman. Additional ensemble members will be announced.

Executive producers Barbra Russell and Ron Sharpe and producers Sharon A. Fordham, Theatre Associates/David Sonnenberg, The Monagle Group, Fanok Entertainment and Vincent Russell made the cast announcement Aug. 17.

The 25-actor, $12 million show has book, music and lyrics by Jill Santoriello, who fell in love with the 1859 Charles Dickens novel — about lovers, family, friends and rebels in London and Paris during the French Revolution — when she was in her teen years. Santoriello is a commercial musical theatre newcomer whose day job for years has been in programming for Showtime Networks. She is an alumnus of The BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. Michael Donald Edwards, Asolo's producing artistic director, is the musical's director. Tony Award winner Tony Walton (Guys and Dolls, Grand Hotel, Pippin) is scenic designer. Warren Carlyle will choreograph.

No Broadway date has been announced, but spring 2008 is the target.

The creative team includes David Zinn (costumes), Richard Pilbrow (lights) and Carl Casella and Domonic Sack (sound). Wendy Bobbit Cavett is musical supervisor. Musical direction is by Jerry Steichen; orchestrations are by Edward B. Kessel and Bob Krogstad.

The performance schedule in Florida will be Tuesday-Saturday at 8 PM and Sunday matinees at 2 PM, plus added weekday and weekend matinees throughout the run.

Tickets in Florida will range $18-$56.

For more information call the Asolo box office at (941) 351-8000 or (800) 361-8388 or visit www.asolo.org or www.talemusical.com.

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Although A Tale of Two Cities is said to be Broadway-aimed, that goal is contingent on a number of factors — good reviews and an available Broadway theatre, for starters.

Set during the French Revolution and bouncing between London and Paris, A Tale of Two Cities "is the recounting of one of the most electrifying love stories ever written told against the backdrop of one of the most terrifying eras in human history," according to the producers. "The musical's sweeping score embodies the emotional pyrotechnics that ceaselessly explode throughout the show's breathtaking two hours. This is an emotionally drenched evening that encompasses unconscionable conspiracies, life-threatening schemes, countless betrayals, secret designs, complete political upheaval, pre-meditated mass murder, mob violence, survival against inhuman odds, unconditional love, unrequited love, indescribable love, heroic courage, breathless bravery and human sacrifice."

The first 12 words of the 1859 novel are some of the best known in the English language: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…" And a certain guillotine scene offers this famous declaration: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

The novel is required reading in many American schools. When Dr. Manette is released from the French Bastille after 17 years, he must be resurrected from the brink of madness by his daughter, Lucie. In England they meet the exiled French aristocrat, Charles Darnay, whom Lucie marries, and the drunken cynic, Sydney Carton. Family secrets and political intrigue combine to draw Lucie and her family back to Paris. At the height of the Reign of Terror, the musical finds an unlikely hero in Carton, inspired by love to make an extraordinary sacrifice.

Director Edwards' resume includes The Barber of Seville and Aida for the Metropolitan Opera, new productions of Un Ballo in Maschera and Carmen for Opera San Jose, and many resident opera, musical and play stagings around the country and in his native Australia (at The Australian Opera, among other companies).

In July 2006, the busy Edwards took over as producing artistic director of Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota.

In its development, the musical A Tale of Two Cities was a finalist in the Eugene O'Neill Center Musical Theatre Workshop and was heard in a premiere symphonic concert in Indianapolis featuring a 40-piece orchestra and a 50-voice chorale (narrated by Richard Kiley).

A 23-track concept recording of the musical was released in 2002 and is currently available throughout the U.S. and Europe. The CD features 56 vocalists including Bryce Dallas Howard and such Broadway performers as Paul Castree, J. Mark McVey, Christiane Noll, Peter Samuel, Alex Santoriello, Tim Shew, Natalie Toro and Nick Wyman, as well as musicians from the Indianapolis Symphony and New Jersey Philharmonic Orchestra.

Santoriello calls the show a traditional book musical that is not all-sung — it's not a pop opera. A casual listener of the concept recording will hear music and lyrics in the lush pop tradition of Les Miz, Jane Eyre, The Phantom of the Opera and The Scarlet Pimpernel.

A fan of the Rodgers and Hammerstein tradition (and later of Stephen Sondheim), Santoriello said she thought years ago (when she was a high-schooler, in fact) that "A Tale of Two Cities" would make a great musical.

She wasn't alone. There have been countless international musical versions of the story over the past century, though none has become a widely-known commercial hit.

In 1987, Santoriello, who is a self-taught musician, used songs she wrote for a formative version of the show to audition and get into the prestigious BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.

What about "A Tale of Two Cities" speaks most strongly to Santoriello?

"Love being stronger than hate," the writer previously told Playbill.com. "And how heroes come out of the strangest places."