At the recent opening night for the Broadway run of The Lyons, Cinderella director Mark Brokaw (The Lyons, Cry-Baby) told Playbill's Harry Haun that Tony Award winner Harriet Harris (Thoroughly Modern Millie) is set to play Cinderella's Stepmother, with Tony winner Victoria Clark (The Light in the Piazza, Sister Act) as the Fairy Godmother and Peter Bartlett (A Free Man of Color, The Frogs) as the Prime Minister.
Representatives for Cinderella declined to confirm further casting. Read Haun's Playbill On Opening Night column about The Lyons and Ghost here.
As previously reported, Osnes (Bonnie & Clyde, South Pacific) will take on the title role, with Fontana (Billy Elliot, The Importance of Being Earnest) as the Prince. Cinderella is aiming for a Broadway opening during the 2012-13 season. Dates of production and a Broadway theatre have yet to be determined.
The classic musical is getting a new dramatic approach from Tony Award-nominated playwright Douglas Carter Beane (Xanadu, Sister Act, Lysistrata Jones).
Robyn Goodman, the Tony-winning producer of Avenue Q, In the Heights and the 2008 revival of West Side Story, Stephen Kocis and Jill Furman in association with Center Theatre Group will produce Cinderella. Beane (Xanadu, Lysistrata Jones, The Little Dog Laughed), who also delivered a fresh book for the Broadway production of Sister Act, has recharted the journey of the classic tale in a new way. Retaining all classic elements of the fairytale, it will now be Cinderella's turn to rescue the Prince.
As previously reported, Beane's treatment will incorporate songs from the Rodgers and Hammerstein catalogue, as well as songs from the original television version, including "In My Own Little Corner," "Impossible/It's Possible," "Ten Minutes Ago" and "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?"
The property's closest brush with Broadway was a national tour that played The Theatre at Madison Square Garden in 2001. It starred Eartha Kitt as the Fairy Godmother and Jamie-Lynn Sigler in the title role. That production drew on several versions of Cinderella, including the original 1957 teleplay and the 1997 "Wonderful World of Disney" version.
There have been three TV versions of Cinderella, which boasts songs by lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II and composer Richard Rodgers. Hammerstein penned the original script, drawing from the Grimm Brothers fairy tale.
