York, the Drama Desk Award winner known for Broadway's City of Angels, Victor/Victoria and Sly Fox, takes on the role created by Sherie Rene Scott while Scott stars in Signature Theatre Company's Landscape of the Body. (Scott is scheduled to return to the Imperial Theatre and Scoundrels June 20.)
Rachel York started rehearsals with Jonathan Pryce as early as the week of Dec. 5. 2005, when Pryce was just taking his first tentative steps to replace John Lithgow as suave con man Lawrence Jameson.
Pryce and Mylinda Hull joined the principal company in January. Hull plays vulgar Oklahoma oil heiress Jolene.
York, respected for her deft comic timing and her powerful, sensuous singing voice, released a solo album, "Let's Fall in Love," in 2005.
In 2004-05, York starred in Lincoln Center Theater's Dessa Rose, for which she was nominated for a 2005 Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Actress in a Musical. York's most recent Broadway appearance was as Miss Fancy and later Mrs. Truckle in the revival of Larry Gelbart's Sly Fox in 2004. In 1996, she was a Drama Desk Award winner as Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical for her daffy, sexy turn as a mobster's moll in Victor/Victoria. In 1993 she was Drama Desk Award nominated as Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical for the New York premiere of Putting It Together She toured in Kiss Me, Kate, as Lilli/Katharine, and played the role(s) in London, where the Michael Blakemore production was filmed for broadcast and home release.
She is also a veteran of Broadway's The Scarlet Pimpernel and Les Miserables, and the tour of Ragtime, among other stage productions.
York's film credits include "One Fine Day," "Billy Bathgate," "Killer Instinct," "Second Honeymoon," "Au Pair II" and as Lucille Ball in the CBS movie, "Lucy."
The cast album of Dessa Rose was released in January 2006. York will also be heard on the upcoming recording of the musical, Summer of '42.
For more information, visit www.rachelyork.net.
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Tony Award-nominated Dirty Rotten Scoundrels has music and lyrics by David Yazbek and libretto by Jeffrey Lane.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels won the 2005 Drama League Award as Best Musical, and was nominated for 11 Tony Awards.
The production also features Norbert Leo Butz (who won a Best Actor Tony for playing the unsophisticated con man, Freddy), Joanna Gleason and Gregory Jbara, and is directed by two-time Tony Award winner Jack O'Brien and choreographed by Tony Award-winner Jerry Mitchell.
