Is Kathie Lee Gifford Musical Saving Aimee Aiming for Broadway in the Fall?

By Andrew Gans
and Adam Hetrick
22 Jun 2012

Carolee Carmello in an earlier workshop presentation of Saving Aimee.
Carolee Carmello in an earlier workshop presentation of Saving Aimee.
Photo by Joan Marcus

It looks like Saving Aimee, the musical about Jazz-Age evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson by Kathie Lee Gifford, David Friedman and David Pomeranz, will arrive on Broadway this fall.

An Equity casting notice for The Aimee Project says rehearsals for the musical, most recently seen at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre, will begin in September with a fall opening to follow.

Saving Aimee has book and lyrics by actress, writer and talk-show host Gifford, and music by Friedman and Pomeranz.

David Armstrong will direct with choreography by Lorin Latarro. Joel Fram is mentioned as music director.

Two-time Tony Award nominee Carolee Carmello (Parade, Hello Again, Lestat, The Addams Family) created the role of McPherson in the 2007 world-premiere staging of Saving Aimee at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA, and also starred in the Seattle production. The writers have refined the material since its debut.

The casting notice describes the musical as such: "New musical based on the life of Aimee Semple McPherson, the world's first media superstar evangelist whose passion for saving souls equaled her passion for making headlines. Set in 1920's Los Angeles, holiness collides with Hollywood in the extraordinary tale of one woman's charismatic rise to fame amidst scandalous love affairs and growing controversy, inevitably ending in her much-publicized fall from grace."

No official announcement about the production has been made.