By Andrew Gans
03 Feb 2005

Maria Friedman

Olivier Award winner Maria Friedman and Tony Award winner Daisy Eagan will head the cast of a production of Gypsy this summer in Odessa, Texas.

Friedman, currently starring in the London production of The Woman in White, will play the famed stage mother Momma Rose, and Eagan will portray her daughter Louise in the limited engagement at the Ector Theatre. Directed by Tony Georges, Gypsy will play Aug. 11-28.

Reached by phone in California, Eagan told Playbill.com, "When they offered the role to me, it seemed like an obvious choice." Eagan, best known for her Tony winning turn in The Secret Garden, recently finished a run in South Coast Repertory's world premiere presentation of Christopher Shinn's On the Mountain, which she said was "an awesome, amazing" experience.

"Both [Friedman and Eagan] are extraordinary. And, the roles [in Gypsy] are so well written that everyone wants to do them," director Georges told Playbill.com. Gypsy will be the final production in a three musical season at the Ector that will also include Beauty and the Beast and Little Shop of Horrors. Georges will direct all three musicals.

Gypsy features a score by Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim and a book by Arthur Laurents. The most recent Broadway production boasted two-time Tony Award winner Bernadette Peters as Momma Rose. Coincidentally, the Ector season will also feature a concert by Peters.

Maria Friedman won her third Olivier Award for her performance as Mother in the West End production of Ragtime. She also won Oliviers for her one-woman show, Maria Friedman—By Special Arrangement, and for her work as Fosca in the London production of Sondheim's Passion. She received Olivier nominations for her roles as Dot in Sunday in the Park with George and Roxie in Chicago. Friedman's other stage credits include Lady in the Dark, Blues in the Night, April in Paris, Break of Day, Square Rounds, The Witches of Eastwick and Ragtime. She can also be seen as the Narrator in the film video of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Daisy Eagan starred as Mary Lennox in the original Broadway production of The Secret Garden, earning a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Her other theatrical credits include Les Misérables, The Little Prince and James Joyce's The Dead. Her screen credits include "Losing Isaiah" and "Ripe." Eagan was also apart of the Sondheim celebration at Carnegie Hall.

Director Tony Georges has also helmed productions of Chicago, The Sound of Music, Peter Pan and The Secret Garden.

Ticket information will be announced shortly.