Betsy Joslyn, a veteran of such Broadway shows as Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park With George and Into the Woods, will play the innkeeper's wife, Madame Thenardier, in Broadway's Les Miserables beginning July 24.

Fuschia Walker, who has played the role since March 1997, left Les Miz at the Imperial Theatre July 22 to go into rehearsals to play Rafikki in the Los Angeles company of The Lion King. The West Coast Lion King cast has not officially been announced, but it's an open secret in the theatre community that Fuschia (she now goes by the single name) has the pivotal Disney role.

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Joslyn is loved by hardcore theatre fans for her portrayal of Nora in the cult musical, A Doll's Life, in which she sang an ambitious score by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Larry Grossman that suggested what happened after Henrik Ibsen's famed character left her husband and children in the groundbreaking play, A Doll's House. Hal Prince directed. The performance is preserved on a cast album, a collector's favorite.

She also appeared in Broadway's High Society, The Goodbye Girl, A Few Good Men, and in tours of Sweeney Todd (also in the PBS version), Beauty and the Beast, Camelot and City of Angels. She joins J. Mark McVey, Gregg Edelman, Jane Bodle, Peter Lockyer, Tobi Foster, Christopher Mark Paterson and Nick Wyman in Les Miserables.