By Kenneth Jones
26 Jun 2006

Full casting for the national tour of Broadway's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels has been announced.

Joining the previously announced title actors Norbert Leo Butz as Freddy and Tom Hewitt (The Rocky Horror Show, Dracula) as Lawrence Jameson will be Drew McVety as accomplice Andre; Laura Marie Duncan as heiress Christine Colgate; Hollis Resnik (Mrs. Meers in the tour of Thoroughly Modern Millie) as Omaha divorcee Muriel; and Jenifer Foote as Oklahoma rich girl Jolene. Timothy Gulan will replace Butz in the role of Freddy beginning with the Columbus engagement.

The tour launches Aug. 4 at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle.

Butz, who won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his role of Freddy Benson in the Broadway production, will reprise the role for the first six cities of the national tour, including the Seattle, Los Angeles, Costa Mesa, Tempe, Houston and Dallas engagements.

The Tony Award-nominated musical comedy by librettist Jeffrey Lane and composer-lyricist David Yazbek is directed by Jack O'Brien and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell.

"Based on the popular 1988 MGM film, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels centers on two con men living on the French Riviera — the suave and sophisticated Lawrence Jameson, who makes his lavish living by talking rich ladies out of their money; and a small-time crook named Freddy Benson, who, more humbly, swindles women by waking their compassion with fabricated stories about his grandmother’s failing health," according to production notes. "After meeting on a train, they unsuccessfully attempt to work together only to find that this small French town isn’t big enough for the two of them. So they make a bet: the first one to swindle $50,000 from a young heiress, triumphs and the other must leave town. What follows are a series of schemes, masquerades and double-crosses in which nothing may ever be exactly what it seems."

The tour company also includes Todd Anderson, Tim Crasky, Beth Curry, Christopher DeAngelis, Ashley Blair Fitzgerald, Christopher Freeman, Rod Harrelson, Danny Herman, Ken Krugman, Juliana Laufer, Emily Loftiss, Natalie Nucci, Martin Samuel, Kim Shriver, Sarrah Strimel, Francis Toumbakaris and Nicole Van Giesen.