Three Cheers: Kennedy, Stiles and van der Pol to Star in Broadway-Aimed Vanities
By Kenneth Jones
30 May 2008
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Lauren Kennedy
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Lauren Kennedy, Sarah Stiles and Anneliese van der Pol will be the three friends — and onetime cheerleaders — who evolve over 25 years in Vanities, A New Musical, playing Pasadena Playhouse Aug. 22-Sept. 28, prior to its Broadway bow.
With book by Jack Heifner, music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum and direction by Judith Ivey, the intimate musical is based on the hit 1976 comedy that ran for 1,785 performances Off-Broadway and blossomed in regional theatres in the years to follow.
Vanities is billed as "a funny, sexy and poignant look at the journey of three All-American girls as they mature from cheerleaders to sorority sisters to independent women. Spanning the turbulent '60s through the late '80s, Vanities celebrates the lives and loves of three best friends caught up in rapidly changing times."
This musical version of the hot Heifner property adds a special coda, in which we learn the fate of the characters.
Kennedy (Broadway's Spamalot, Sunset Boulevard, Side Show, London's South Pacific) will play Mary, Stiles (Avenue Q, …Spelling Bee) will play Joanne, and van der Pol (Broadway's final Belle in Beauty and the Beast, TV's "That's So Raven") will play Kathy.
The Vanities creative team includes choreographer Dan Knechtges (Xanadu, …Spelling Bee), set designer Anna Louizos (In the Heights, Curtains), costume designer Joe Aulisi ("Charlie's Angels"), lighting designer Paul Miller (Legally Blonde), sound designer Tony Meola (Wicked), music director Carmel Dean (…Spelling Bee) and orchestrator Lynne Shankel (Cry-Baby).
Vanities will be produced on Broadway by Junkyard Dog Productions and Bartner/Jenkins Entertainment.
No theatre or dates for Broadway have been announced. The Pasadena Playhouse run officially opens Aug. 29 in California.
Vanities, A New Musical was originally produced at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto in summer 2006. The critically acclaimed production was awarded two Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards for Outstanding Musical Production and Best Original Score, and was also showcased at the 2006 National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) Festival of New Musicals.
Kirshenbaum is the composer-lyricist for Summer of '42 (book by Hunter Foster), which ran Off-Broadway at the Variety Arts Theatre; and Party Come Here, seen at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2007.
Ivey is the recipient of the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for her performances in Steaming and Hurlyburly. She also recently toured the U.S. in the one-woman show, Irene O'Garden's Women on Fire. Ivey's most recent directing credit is the Off-Broadway production of Secrets of a Soccer Mom. Prior to that, she directed The Butcher of Baraboo (Second Stage Uptown Series), Fugue (Cherry Lane Theatre) and More with Yeardley Smith (Union Square Theatre, and the Falcon Theatre in Los Angeles).
For more information visit www.VanitiesTheMusical.com.
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